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发帖数: 4174 | 1 Posted on Advocate.com June 20, 2011 07:45:00 PM ET
Judge: Wisconsin DP Registry OK
By Advocate.com Editors
Julaine Appling of Wisconsin Family Action Wisconsin’s domestic-partnership
registry does not violate the state constitution’s ban on same-sex
marriage, a judge ruled Monday.
The decision is being touted as a victory for gay rights, although Dane
County circuit judge Daniel Moeser’s ruling cites the fact that domestic
partnerships, established in Wisconsin in 2009, convey far fewer rights and
responsibilities than marriage.
“The state does not recognize domestic partnership in a way that even
remotely resembles how the state recognizes marriage,” Moeser wrote. “
Moreover, domestic partners have far fewer legal rights, duties, and
liabilities in comparison to the legal rights, duties, and liabilities of
spouses.”
Since the Wisconsin legislature set up the registry in 2009, about 1,700
couples have entered into domestic partnerships. In 2006 voters had approved
a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage in the state.
Gov. Scott Walker, a first-term Republican, refused to defend the registry
because he believed it was unconstitutional, and he told the court so in May
, the Associated Press reports. However, the court had already heard
arguments by then. His predecessor, Democrat Jim Doyle, had appointed
private attorneys to defend the law after the state’s attorney general had
declined to do so.
The conservative group Wisconsin Family Action, which brought the lawsuit
against the registry, vowed to appeal Moeser’s decision as far as the state
Supreme Court if necessary. “We’re going to work through the process and
we will be appealing as we work to defend the constitution and the
institution of marriage,” the group’s president, Julaine Appling, told AP.
Katie Belanger, director of gay rights organization Fair Wisconsin, which
had intervened in the case to defend the registry, said her group is
prepared for the appeal process, but Moeser’s ruling still makes it a “
great day for Wisconsin.” |
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