3rd UPDATE: I was remiss earlier in  not including Bill Schuette’s entire statements on the white supremacist court brief submitted in support of the attorney general’s fight against marriage equality.
Here they are:

“There is no place in this discussion for  derogatory language, and anything like it will be completely disregarded by the Department of Attorney General.  The Sixth Circuit should use this brief to line a birdcage, because that’s all it’s good for.” 
Second, here is the Schuette statement in reference to the governor’s comment about a lack of interaction with the AG’s office:
“The Department of Attorney General and the governor’s office talk all the time. Those conversations are confidential.  The governor’s written statement speaks for itself, and as the attorney general has said all along, these issues will ultimately be sorted out by the courts, just as they have in other states. The sooner these questions are answered, the better.”

2nd UPDATE: I am shocked — shocked! — to learn that white supremacist Kyle Bristow began his political activism here in Macomb County. He grew up in Clinton Township, in the Rivergate subdivision, and started up a Young Republicans group at Chippewa Valley High School. From there, he became active working on GOP campaigns.

UPDATE: Bill Schuette has issued a statement denouncing the Traditionalist Youth Network’s court brief, saying it’s only good for “lining a birdcage.”

The evidence is mounting that Attorney General Bill
Schuette has decided to latch onto the far right, including gay haters and
white supremacists, in order to keep his job.

As Gov. Rick Snyder was trying to decide what to do about
the 300 same-sex marriages performed in Michigan before the federal appellate
court issued a stay, the state’s top lawyer, Schuette, apparently wanted
nothing to do with that decision.
Though Schuette is arguing the gay rights case in the
federal courts and has vowed to fight marriage equality all the way to the U.S.
Supreme Court, here is what happened when the governor went to him for legal
advice.
“Snyder said he met with legal counsel and
contacted Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office to understand the
complexities of the issue. Schuette’s office did not respond, Snyder said.”
That’s according to Crain’s Detroit Business.
Snyder is already unpopular with the tea party
and other staunchly conservative Republicans. His decision that those gay
marriages are legal (though not enforceable at the moment) will further erode
his popularity with the far-right crowd. Schuette obviously is keeping his distance.
Meanwhile, Kathy Hoekstra, a writer and
blogger, has uncovered some embarrassing details about one group that is siding
with Schuette in his fight against gay rights.
The AG had already demonstrated some of his questionable
connections during the federal court trial that led to the short-lived ruling
that legalized same-sex marriage. Schuette’s last expert witness testified that
“unrepentant
homosexuals are going to hell.”
Now, his appeal
to the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court is backed by a white nationalist group called
the Traditionalist Youth Network, which has filed an amicus
curiae brief supporting Schuette’s legal fight.
Hoekstra writes on her Detroit News blog that the lead counsel for this brief is Kyle Bristow,
a Clarkston- based lawyer who gained notoriety in college as head of the
Michigan State University chapter of Young Americans for Freedom.
Bristow loudly pushed for the elimination of funding for
“all non-heterosexual student organizations” and creating both a
“Caucasion Caucus” and “Man’s Council” on campus.
Bristow

 The Traditionalist Youth Network Bristow represents is
tied to
the white nationalist movement and was founded by Matthew
Heimbach, formerly the president of the Towson University White Student Union,
according to Hoekstra. Heimbach has boasted that “No longer do white student unions
have to feel ostracized and alone for having pride in their people while
witnessing the genocide of our race.”
Here’s some more from Hoekstra:
“The group then zeroes in the act of sodomy as the
offending behavior to be feared. The TYN states that sodomy has become ‘so
chic,’ activists have convinced judges it should be normalized. Which,
according to the TYN, leads to all sorts of abhorant, deviant behavior:
“‘If a state cannot
be permitted to define marriage as simply as constituting one man and one
woman, then our culture will be taken down a very slippery slope that will see
pedophiles, polygamists, zoophiles, those in incestuous relationships, and
every other sexual deviant with proclivities now known or to be invented to
challenge laws that, likewise, prevent them from marrying whom—or what—they
wish.’
“If this amicus brief is allowed to stand,” Hoekstra continued, “Schuette, his
office and the state of Michigan will be forever tied to those who think two
people of the same gender getting married will lead to my neighbor demanding to
marry my cat.”
By siding with the far right, Schuette should have an easy path to winning the GOP nomination at the Republican state convention later this year (not every incumbent Republican officeholder can say that). But in the general election, I don’t think the “Schuette on duty” slogan will work very well if it reminds voters that the AG is protecting us all from those people who want to take the phrase “cat lover” to the next level.

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