July 31, 2014

The Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously upholds the domestic partner registry.

The challenge was based on an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution that barred not only same-sex marriage but also any "legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals."
[T]he court emphasized that proponents of the amendment, including Wisconsin Family Action executive director Julaine Appling, the lead plaintiff in the case, and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, made statements during the 2006 public debate that the marriage amendment wouldn't prevent the Legislature from granting certain rights to same-sex couples.
Meanwhile, the ban on same-sex marriage itself has been found unconstitutional by a federal district court, and that case is on appeal. I think we can predict where that's going to end up, but for today, the domestic partner registry — soon to be a relic of a bygone age — survives.

4 comments:

cubanbob said...

Setting the actual merits of the issues aside, I don't understand how a court of a state can determine that a clause of that state's constitution is unconstitutional in the context of that state's constitution.

traditionalguy said...

This decision goes into the anti-climax, war surplus, mothballed and out of date weapon category.

Moose said...

Ah - I remembered this idiocy in the 80's. No one wanted to get married, but they all wanted the perqs of being married. No one thought - by any means - that gay people wanted to get married.

Etc, etc.

Ann Althouse said...

"Setting the actual merits of the issues aside, I don't understand how a court of a state can determine that a clause of that state's constitution is unconstitutional in the context of that state's constitution."

The court said the a state statute did not violate the state constitution.