On November 5, 2013, voters in the Michigan community of Royal Oak approved a local ordinance protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people from discrimination. Passage of this ordinance, in a 54 to 46 percent vote, comes 12 years after Royal Oak residents previously voted down a similar proposal.

Federation member Equality Michigan was a key player in the fight for fairness and equality in Royal Oak. We talked with Emily Dievendorf and Sommer Foster about the campaign that led to this historic win.

Equality Federation: Please tell us about Proposal A. What is the Human Rights Ordinance passed in Royal Oak? Why it was put on the ballot?
Equality Michigan: Proposal A was a human rights ordinance that was originally passed in March by the city commission.  It prohibited discrimination against gay and transgender folks in housing, public accommodation and employment.  After passage by the Royal Oak City Commission, opposition gathered and was able to collect enough signatures to put it on the ballot for a vote by the residents of Royal Oak.

EF: Please tell us about the campaign to win at the ballot. What is One Royal Oak?
EQMI: One Royal Oak was a community campaign to defend the city’s human rights ordinance (HRO).  We raised more than $100,000, and we developed and implemented an aggressive field and communications plan. 

At the time of the vote, the population of Royal Oak was over 57,000, with more than 44,000 voters.  We assumed that turnout would be 23 percent, or 10,239 voters.  In previous off-year elections, turnout was 17 percent, but we anticipated a bump in turnout due to the contentious nature of the HRO.  We attempted nearly 60,000 contacts with voters and had almost 11,000 conversations.  In the end, 27.8% of the voters turned out, and we won 54 percent of the vote.

EF: What were the challenges you faced as a part of this ballot campaign?
EQMI: Royal Oak was seen as a progressive enclave in Metro Detroit, and many of the residents who were supportive thought we would have an overwhelming victory. Because of this, community members were slow to come out and support the campaign through volunteering and donations. 

Additionally, the opposition engaged aggressively to undermine support for the ordinance.  They sent negative mailers that were full of lies and scare tactics. They tried to create transphobia by talking about transgender folks using restrooms, they positioned the ordinance as legislation giving LGBT people “special rights,” and they claimed that blood donations would no longer be allowed in Royal Oak if the ordinance passed. Fortunately, Royal Oak residents saw through these false claims and voted in favor of fairness.

EF: What opportunities came up as a result of this ballot campaign?‚Ä®
EQMI: Due to the campaign, many community members were made aware of the fact that the LGBT community is lacking basic protections and rights all across Michigan.  Since the campaign gave us such an incredible opportunity to educate the public, we now have many cities and townships that want an HRO, and citizens have been proactive in contacting their city council members and township trustees.

EF: No ballot campaign can be won alone. Who did Equality Michigan work with? What is the Unity Michigan Coalition?
EQMI: The Unity Michigan Coalition works to ensure that all Michiganders are treated fairly in the workplace by advancing nondiscrimination policies.  The Unity Michigan Coalition includes the ACLU of Michigan, Affirmations, Equality Michigan, the Kalamazoo Gay Lesbian Resource Center (KGLRC), KICK, the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion and the Ruth Ellis Center.

We worked with Unity quite a bit on the One Royal Oak campaign. More specifically Equality Michigan, Affirmations, KGLRC, and KICK put many resources into the campaign in the form of staff and/or volunteer hours.  We also received a lot of support from the The Gay and Lesbian Task Force, The LA Gay and Lesbian Center, Michigan State AFL-CIO, MI Planned Parenthood, faith groups, the business community and many high school GSAs.

EF: How did Equality Michigan and the Unity Michigan Coalition gather support from the community to win at the ballot?
EQMI: One of the first things we did as a campaign was to reach out to the business community and to the faith community. 

Royal Oak has several large churches, and we knew that that, even if we couldn’t get the support of these churches, keeping them neutral was paramount to our success.  We were able to do just that. 

Royal Oak boasts a booming downtown area, and we knew that opponents would argue that an HRO was bad for small businesses.  We immediately sought to neutralize that argument before it could play out by engaging business owners in the campaign.

To gain community support, we were very aggressive on the doors and on the phones.  We left no stone unturned, and we made no assumptions about our voters.  We engaged students from the nearby colleges (the closest one was 25 minutes away) and from the nearby high schools, and they were invaluable.  Every time we found a supporter, we made an aggressive volunteer ask, and we were able to recruit many volunteers that way.

Congratulations to Equality Michigan, Unity Michigan, the One Royal Oak campaign, and all of the partners who contributed to this big win.

More and more, opponents of equality are working to repeal pro-LGBT laws at the ballot box, but we keep successfully fighting back their attempts to roll back protections for our community! One Royal Oak is yet another example of how to effectively win the hearts and minds of community members to achieve a historic victory!