Lesbian Michigan AG accused of using 'tyranny' to suppress biblical marriage beliefs

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Dana Nessel, the attorney general for the state of Michigan, is charged in a new lawsuit with "watching, listening, tracking, and compiling secret dossiers on dissidents until they are finally accused and prosecuted" which are "the police-state tactics one might associate with an authoritarian regime in a World War II movie," a law firm contends.

The claims have been submitted by officials with the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of its clients, Gary Michael Voris and St. Michael's Media, also known as Church Militant, a nonprofit operating in the state.

The legal team describes the "tyrannical tactics to suppress religious belief in traditional marriage," that are being used by Nessel, who boasts on her state website of living in southeastern Michigan with her wife.

"These are the very methods the Thomas More Law Center has found are being used by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel acting in concert with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center," the legal team explained.

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The case is on behalf of Church Militant, a nonprofit Michigan-based religious media organization that promotes traditional Catholic beliefs, including that marriage as instituted by God is for one man and one woman.

The SPLC, described by the TMLC as "a notorious and discredited radical left-wing anti-Christian organization," published a "hate map" that included Church Militant as "anti-lgbt."

Then Nessel issued a news release "referencing and linking to SPLC's Hate Map. The joint release contained Nessel's promise to establish a hate-crimes unit to fight against hate crimes and hate groups which have been allowed to proliferate in Michigan," the legal team said.

Ominously, the chief of the state Civil Rights Department, the legal team explained, "told a Detroit News reporter that the department is creating a database which would document hate and bias incidents that don't rise to the level of a crime or civil infraction."

The AG's office did not respond to WND's request for a comment in time for this story, but the legal team said that's just the beginning of "damning evidence of AG Nessel's hostility toward traditional marriage."

More came from Chief Judge Robert Jonker of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, who in 2019 determined "Nessel attempted to stop St. Vincent Catholic Charities from performing adoption and foster placement services because it professed the Catholic belief on marriage. Judge Jonker said that past statements by Nessel 'raise a strong inference of hostility toward a religious viewpoint.'"

The judge found, significantly, that St. Vincent was targeted "based on its religious belief, and it was defendant Nessel who targeted it."

The law center, a national nonprofit public interest law firm in Ann Arbor, was "concerned that AG Nessel" is weaponizing her office "to suppress religious beliefs in traditional marriage by threats of investigation and prosecution," and filed various records requests.

But Nessel, "using sham excuses … refused to supply crucial records."

So the TMLC filed a lawsuit in the Michigan Court of Claims.

"This lawsuit is about the right of the people to know what their public officials are doing," said Richard Thompson, chief counsel at TMLC. "We believe that Attorney General Nessel targeted Church Militant because of its stance on traditional marriage as she had done in the case involving St. Vincent."

He explained, "The combination of actions by Attorney General Nessel, the Department of Civil Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech and religion not only of Church Militant, but every religious group in Michigan that stands for traditional marriage."

The TMLC noted that Nessel's office "astonishingly" admitted "It had no policies in place to safeguard the constitutional rights of individuals who committed no crime but are being investigated for espousing traditional marriage."

And it admitted it had no clear definitions for "bias incidents."

"Without policies to adequately guide the actions of the Hate Crime Unit, it is free to roam about launching secret investigations against any organization based solely on the fact that it supports traditional marriage," the TMLC said.

"One of her primary goals is to suppress the religious definition of marriage that does not conform to her opinions on same-sex marriage," Thompson said.

The complaint asks for a court order for production of the records the TMLC has sought.