Wis. groups seek to defend domestic partner law
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Lawyers representing Gov. Jim Doyle, a gay rights group and several gay couples said they would ask the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject a challenge to the state's new domestic partnership registry.
Members of a social conservative group filed a lawsuit in July claiming the registry violates the constitutional ban on gay marriage and civil unions approved by voters in 2006. They asked the Supreme Court to take the case immediately, bypassing trial and appeals courts, because of its statewide significance.
The Supreme Court is considering whether to take the case and had ordered the state to respond by Tuesday. At least four justices have to agree to do so.
Madison attorney Lester Pines, hired by Doyle to defend the registry after Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen refused, said he planned to argue there were so many facts in dispute that a trial court should consider it first.
Lawyers for Fair Wisconsin, the group that lobbied lawmakers to create the registry this year, and the American Civil Liberties Union said they would echo that argument. ACLU said it will ask the court to represent several gay couples in defending the registry.
Since Fair Wisconsin and ACLU are not parties to the case, they have to ask the court to allow them to intervene. The plaintiffs in the case, members of Wisconsin Family Action, have not decided whether to oppose the requests, lawyer Jim Campbell said.
Nine-hundred seventy couples have been added to the registry since the law went into effect in August, according to the Department of Health Services. Registering gives them limited benefits such as the right to visit each other in the hospital, take medical leave to care for an ill partner and inherit assets when a partner dies.
Fair Wisconsin, which led the opposition to the 2006 amendment, is being represented in the case by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a New York-based gay rights group.
Supporters of the registry note the benefits and legal protections that it offers fall short of those given to married couples. Registered couples do not enjoy the right to jointly file taxes, the benefits associated with joint marital property, or the rights and benefits associated with divorce law, among other things.
"To suggest that these few protections granted to same-sex couples and their families resemble the much revered status of marriage is preposterous," Lambda Legal attorney Christopher Clark said in a statement.
But Van Hollen and other critics say the law is unconstitutional because the new relationships created are "substantially similar" to marriage, which was outlawed by the 2006 amendment. They focus on the similarities in the process and qualifications to apply for the registry and a marriage license.
Clark, the Fair Wisconsin attorney, said he wants to show how voters were told in 2006 the amendment would not prohibit domestic partner benefits. Such fact-finding is best done at the trial court level, he said.
Clark said he rejected the argument the case should be expedited to the high court so same-sex couples can know sooner whether their relationships are valid. He said there was no emergency for the court to act now.
"Same-sex couples are going to be better served by having a deliberate presentation of the evidence that lays out their case as opposed to rushing to judgment," he said. "We believe the history and evidence is squarely on our side."
Sep 24, 2009 at 2:33 p.m.
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I'm not complaining about the registry. I'm complaining that the laws for opposite sex relationaships don't contain some of the same "advantages."
Apparently your tunnel vision prevents you from seeing the other side of the coin. Exactly what you are accusing others of.
Sep 24, 2009 at 7:50 a.m.
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JohnDoe: I'm not the one complaining about this Domestic Partner registry. You are. I suggest you stick with your homework. While you're at it, you may want to check out history.
Sep 23, 2009 at 7:58 p.m.
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rockstars....yes there is a difference...in many ways.
I'm OK with what you are trying to do...but I would also expect you to work to get the advantages that are incorporated into domestic partnership laws into the divorce laws.
Deal?
And if you have to ask what the advantages are... I suggest you do your homework as I do mine on the issue.
If you are not willing to do that, then you have no room to complain.
Sep 23, 2009 at 8:43 a.m.
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JohnDoe: That's just one more thing that makes this DIFFERENT than marriage.
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Another: You're still more than welcome to teach your children whatever "values" you want. And, even though you don't want to believe it, "values" that oppress and discriminate ARE bigoted values. As far as your children being taught things by other people than you, then that's a parenting fault. I went to school in Janesville for my entire upbringing (and I'm under 30) and NOT ONCE were the students in any of the classes I was in taught about heterosexuality or homosexuality. You're misguided and hiding behind your insistence that us big bad gays are going to teach your children to be gay, too. Sorry. You're wrong. I was born this way (just as heterosexuals are born gay!). Get over yourself, get over your bigotry, and start learning the true values of love, acceptance and happiness for all. It would behoove you to do this now. You never know when your child, brother, sister, etc. could work up the courage to tell you they are gay. Would you want your own child to be oppressed?
Sep 23, 2009 at 12:19 a.m.
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If it's about end of life decisions, a simple power of attorney would suffice.
Nobody wants to know what goes on in your house...Really.
Defining marriage as one man and one woman isn't about telling anyone what to do or not to do. It isn't about saying how bad you are for being different. It's not about name calling or depriving anybody of anything.
If someone wants to co-habitate, nobody is going to stop them.
It is about our values. There are things we value very much. They may be different than yours but they are valid. Our children are ours, not yours. We value our children and love them and care for them.If we want to teach them our values that is our business, not yours.
We are protecting our children from being taught your values. We don't want our children told by our government and public schools that our values are bigoted when that is not the case and is a very unfair assessment. The people that are actually organized against such legislation are not the same people that get their comments removed by the Janesville Gazette. Anyone that holds these values wouldn't say anything derogatory to you. We are not about hate. We are about protecting our values. We are about loving our children. We want them to grow up to be decent people and not haters.
Sep 22, 2009 at 11:54 p.m.
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rockstars... you used the word "rights"...I used the word "advantages." There is a difference.
The main one that comes to mind is the ease to get out of the "legal relationship" should, as I stated, "God forbid, the romance ends."
To wit:(3) Upon receiving a completed, signed, and notarized notice of termination of domestic partnership, the affidavit under sub. (1) (b) if required, and the fee under s. 770.17, the county clerk shall issue to the domestic partner filing the notice of termination a certificate of termination of domestic partnership.
Such a clause could save a lot of undue hardship in a hetrosexual relationship breakup.
But it's not available to them.
Sep 22, 2009 at 11:15 p.m.
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JohnDoe: Please elaborate on what right this gives beyond any rights a married couple already has.
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Brewernut: What gives the public and voters the right to make decisions for me when I'm dying when my husband should be the one doing it? What Wisconsin citizens voted on allowed discimination to be written into our Constitution. What a sad day that was to have discrimination become a state value. In this day and age, would we ban interracial marriage? Would we bar a white woman from making end of life decisions for her black male spouse? Doing so is tantamount to bigotry. Denying committed gay couples the same right is also bigotry. Please stay out of my life and business. I don't tell you who you can love.
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Forgive any misspellings... I'm typing from my phone.
Sep 22, 2009 at 9:52 p.m.
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To each their own....but Sandman does have a point in that domestic partners are afforded some advantages over married couples should, God forbid, the romance ends.
Sep 22, 2009 at 7:53 p.m.
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I thought we all voted on this already and decided that we didn't want same sex marriages.. You can't have it both ways.. I know that they are saying they are just lobbying for less rights, but they are still asking for additional rights? If a Fair Wisconsin didn't want it, a Fair Wisconsin would have voted for it.. Get over it people, Wisconsin does NOT want same sex couples getting rights that real married couples get.
Sep 22, 2009 at 6:46 p.m.
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Thank goodness he's not procreating! We don't need anymore like him.
Sep 22, 2009 at 5:56 p.m.
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That's pretty funny, Sandman. You sound like you're offended and claim that the domestic partner registry is discriminatory to straight couples. Well, I'm pretty offended that the Wisconsin's definition of marriage is discriminatory to ME!
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Pot meet kettle.
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Oh, and don't worry, I got my marriage in Iowa. A progressive state that isn't filled with bible-thumping, hateful, right-wing extreme "Christians" like you appear to be.
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And I have a question for you... Every time you have sex, are you procreating? I didn't think so. You probably don't use condoms and admonish birth control, too, don't you?
Sep 22, 2009 at 5:41 p.m.
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yea sandman... loving someone and wanting to be legally recognized as a couple is REALLY deviant behavior
maybe we should just throw all the hooligans in jail...
Sep 22, 2009 at 3:46 p.m.
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You can't defend this debacle! It's a complete end-around by the idiot-in-charge Doyle of an issue that was already decided by voters -- no gay marriage! And if it isn't that, google "WI domestic partner registration" and see what it consists of. And note that two heterosexuals CAN'T be domestic partners (if that isn't discrimination, I don't know what is!) -- they have to to get married, and incur the legal costs of divorce too if they fall apart, not just file a few forms for either option when they change their minds about their temporary "romantic" situation.
This is what it has always been -- a selfish grab for benefits by homosexual male/female role-players. Enjoy your lives, enjoy your non-procreative sex, but fund your own fun and pay a lawyer to draw up or dissolve your arrangements, but don't expect taxpayers to condone it and to shoulder the burden for it by creating special categories for every deviant behavioral choice out there, I don't care how many pride parades or marches you have!
Sep 22, 2009 at 2:53 p.m.
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Wow, Zippy_TPH. That's wildly inappropriate.
Sep 22, 2009 at 2:49 p.m.
Sep 22, 2009 at 11:37 a.m.
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I support the registry and I am not gay. It affects my choice to be in a committed relationship with my boyfriend and not be married by choice and to allow him to be covered under my benefits and to allow him to be the desginated one to make decisions on my behalf if something should happen. Every one has a right to be in the relationships of their choice and the government needs to but out!
Sep 22, 2009 at 11:01 a.m.
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A persons choice is just that and the government has no business trying to control these issues......
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