News & Commentary

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was sued by four same-sex couples seeking the right to marry in the state and to overturn a law that threatens them with imprisonment if they wed in another state.

Lawyers filed suit in federal court Monday seeking to overturn Wisconsin’s ban on same-sex marriages and to block a state statute that makes it a crime to travel elsewhere for such a marriage.

Wisconsin is a state of political contradictions—we Wisconsinites have a proud progressive history, but we also produced one of the biggest opponents of welfare in the nation, a man who almost became the vice presidential nominee. We produced the first openly gay U.S. senator, but our state has held a ban on gay marriage for the past eight years.

Four same-sex couples on Monday asked a federal judge in Wisconsin to overturn the state's constitutional ban on gay marriage, the latest in a series of court challenges aimed at making same-sex marriage legal around the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Monday morning challenging Wisconsin's constitutional ban on gay marriage. Four couples are plaintiffs in the suit.

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals today announced that the state’s law granting domestic partnership protections to same-sex couples will be upheld.

Although the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin declined to comment on partisan issues, spokesperson Stacy Harbaugh said the group has various LGBT campaigns at the state level. These include a lawsuit against Wisconsin Family Action and an anti-bullying campaign in Milwaukee, where the ACLU of Wisconsin has a large youth program. “While politicians at the federal level are arguing about these very important issues, there are rights that still need to be defended at the state level, and we are involved with that,” Harbaugh said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit today upheld the right of transgender people to receive medical care while they are incarcerated.

Judge Daniel Moeser resoundingly rejected today an attack on Wisconsin’s Domestic Partner Registry brought by Board members of Wisconsin Family Action, an organization whose members pushed for Wisconsin’s anti-Marriage constitutional amendment in 2006. Despite securing passage of the amendment by assuring voters that domestic partnerships would still be allowed, the Wisconsin Family Action plaintiffs asserted that the anti-Marriage amendment prohibited the Domestic Partner law passed by the legislature in 2008 to provide crucial but very limited protections to same-sex couples.