Will the home of the Packers send a gay marriage ban packing?
By Lauren Pruneski
Wednesday November 1, 2006
On November 7, Wisconsin voters may become the first in the country to reject an amendment to the state constitution that would ban same-sex marriage. Twenty states have defined marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman, and out of eight states with marriage amendments on next week’s ballot, at least Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Tennessee are expected to join the anti-marriage-equality pack. But the contest is different in states like Virginia, Colorado, and especially Wisconsin, where polls show that the ban’s opponents have a fighting chance. There is much more at stake in Wisconsin’s proposed amendment than gay marriage; the amendment would also prohibit “ a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals,” the type of union legalized last week by the supreme court of New Jersey. The amendment’s passage is not only in doubt because of its extreme position, but also because the opposition movement, Fair Wisconsin, has mounted a grassroots campaign like no other in the state’s history.
Joined by an impressive coalition of politicians, unions, businesses, churches, and educators—the Board of Regents at the University of Wisconsin announced their support on October 6—and some 8,000 volunteers, Fair Wisconsin’s campaign focuses on the far-reaching implications of a civil union ban. Its advertisements and outreach programs emphasize that such a ban would limit rights for all unmarried couples, gay or straight, reversing hard-won domestic partner benefits and jeopardizing rights such as hospital visits, medical decision-making, and pension inheritance. At stake is not only a gay couple’s right to marry, but any couple’s right to enjoy the same legal protections accorded to heterosexual married couples.
Civil unions are decidedly more popular than gay marriage; an August 2006 Pew poll shows that 54 percent of Americans favor civil unions. Of the 20 states that have passed anti-marriage equality amendments, 12 have also banned legal commitments that resemble marriage. Sponsors of these extended amendments frame the “marriage by any other name” ban as an added “protection” for heterosexual marriage, but their talking points belie a deeper prejudice. And this election year, campaigns working to defeat the bans can prove it. Several cases in Ohio, Michigan, and Oregon have demonstrated that statewide bans on civil unions or domestic partnerships have, in fact, been used toward discriminatory ends, despite what their supporters argued prior to passage. In Ohio, for example, a lead author of that state’s 2004 amendment, attorney David Langdon, and the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund have sued the Miami University of Ohio—a public university—over its generous domestic partner policy, which they claim is now unconstitutional. And, in announcing its opposition, the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO cited effects of Michigan’s 2004 civil union ban: after it was passed, the state attorney general issued a memo advising local government employers not to renew domestic partner benefits.
The extreme reach of Wisconsin’s proposed ban is in part why Fair Wisconsin has attracted such a wide and powerful list of supporters. Charles Pruitt of the UW-Madison Board of Regents told the Badger Herald, “The second sentence [of the proposed amendment] takes us directly to an issue that this board and I think this university system has decided is critically important for our ability to compete in the global economy, which is providing domestic partner benefits at least at some point in the future.”
The Regents have lobbied the state legislature to lift its ban on domestic partner benefits, thus far unsuccessfully. UW-Madison remains the only Big 10 university that does not provide these benefits. A leading nanotechnology researcher recently left for this reason.
Despite these examples, State Rep. Mark Gundrum (R-New Berlin), an author of the amendment, and Julaine Appling, President of Vote Yes for Marriage, have argued in public debates, in the press, and on radio talk shows that benefits for unmarried heterosexual couples aren’t jeopardized by the amendment, and that this is an allegation designed to confuse voters or distract them from “protecting marriage.” Appling and her allies frequently refer to Kentucky, where an almost identically-worded amendment passed in 2004 and where, to date, no efforts have been made to strike down domestic partner benefits. One lawsuit, however, Wood v. Kentucky, did attempt to invalidate the amendment on the grounds that voters weren’t able to discern its impact on such rights and benefits as wrongful death suits, medical decisions, and health insurance for domestic partners. The case was dismissed, but written into the opinion was precisely the concern that Appling dismisses as liberal nonsense:
This Court agrees with the Plaintiff’s contention that the above enumerated relational and legal rights and responsibilities may be affected by the passage of the Marriage Amendment. This Court is not particularly swayed by the generalized response to these issues, as exemplified [in the attorney general’s memo in support of dismissal]: “[t]he amendment does not prohibit employers from giving domestic partner benefits, if that is what they feel is in their best interest.”…To borrow a phrase from Louisiana District Court Judge William A. Morvant, ‘Says who?’
Lester Pines, a Madison attorney active in the opposition, believes the ban’s supporters are being less-than-honest when they claim they mean no harm to gay families. “We need to have an understanding of who the proponents of this really are and what they really want before we can understand the mischief that it can cause,” he said. “We are dealing with a group of people who are coming from a very narrow base…people who believe that their view of appropriate sexual behavior should be the law of the land.” He added that Appling and others have frequently spoken out against the kind of privacy rights granted in Griswold v. Connecticut—specifically the right to privacy in marital relations. As Appling said on Wisconsin public radio, “[Marriage] is not some kind of private relationship between two quote ‘loving and committed people.’”
It’s highly likely that Appling’s side never suspected the ferocity with which Fair Wisconsin would tackle and then maintain control of the issue. By comparison, the ban’s supporters are under-funded and poorly organized; the websites of groups like Vote Yes for Marriage pale in comparison to Fair Wisconsin’s, which is attractively designed and contains extensive educational resources. An interactive map of Wisconsin’s counties, for example, allows users to check for canvassing and other outreach events in their area.
Fair Wisconsin has also been running several advertisements on television networks across the state since mid-July. Vote Yes only launched its first statewide television ad on Monday.
“The energy in Madison certainly leans toward Fair Wisconsin,” said Judith Davidoff, who covers the issue for The Capital Times in Madison. She added that the campaign is impressive—and likely unprecedented—in the way it has rallied supporters as disparate as the AFL-CIO and the Madison Chamber of Commerce. Indeed, the list of endorsements grows longer every week. Activism on college campuses and in high schools has also contributed to Fair Wisconsin’s momentum leading up to the election, and the opposition believes that a strong student turnout on November 7 could swing the vote in their favor.
But amendment supporters also have recent events on their side: in just over a week, New Jersey’s Supreme Court ruling has revived the issue of marriage protection among conservatives, and prior to that, the Foley scandal inspired its own anti-gay rights reaction. Wisconsin may be moderately liberal in its leanings, but discomfort over gay marriage and gay rights run deep in much of Wisconsin, and it has been relatively easy for the “yes” side to capitalize on this sentiment.
Still, at the very least, the vote will likely be the closest of its kind. Fair Wisconsin has framed an especially controversial issue in the appealing ideal of fairness, teaching voters that marriage—or anything resembling it—is a gateway to a whole host of benefits that make it infinitely easier to live an economically and socially stable life under the law. Progressives have a lot to learn from Wisconsin, where this anti-amendment coalition may neutralize a contentious culture war issue.
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Comments
Progressives have nothing to learn from Wisconsin. My state is unfortunately just as hateful and bigoted as all the other states that have passed simmilar amendments. “Fighting” Bob LaFollete must be rolling in his grave today.
— Brian - Nov 8, 06:41 PM - #I love Wisconsin. I am so glad the amendment passed, I always loved that state and now I know that it will remain a great place to raise children for years to come.
— Steven - Dec 14, 08:40 PM - #Steven,
— Felicia - Feb 7, 01:36 PM - #Why, just because the amendment passed, will it remain a great place to raise children? In all honesty, who would gay marriage hurt?
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The gay marriage ban will hurt me and my wife-to-be where can we go if when can’t afford to go somewhere else to get married EVERYONE DESERVES TO BE EQUAL!!
— Megan - Jul 2, 12:14 PM - #