One Wisconsin Now

Unfortunately Wisconsin enshrined discrimination against gay families in its constitution in 2006. But that didn’t stop hundreds of Wisconsinites all across the state from protesting California’s passage of Proposition 8. Over the weekend people in Wisconsin stood in solidarity with others all across the country demanding equality for gay and lesbian families.

While reading the accounts of some of the protests over the weekend, I also came across a very telling piece in the Boston Globe today. Massachusetts is one of the only states in the nation that allows same-sex couples to get married. Although those that oppose equality claimed that the sky would fall and that the institution of marriage would collapse, the Globe piece reports that the very opposite is true.

Even though the State of Massachusetts is often maligned by conservatives for lacking “traditional” values, it has long ranked as having one of the lowest divorce rates in the country. Some 5 years after the state sanctioned gay marriage, it still has the lowest divorce rate in the nation. Not exactly the disaster for marriage that the extreme right chants about every time the subject is broached.

The Globe piece also shows that attitudes of people living in Massachusetts have drastically changed toward gay marriage as they have been exposed to it over the past five years. In 2004 only 42 percent of the people in Massachusetts approved of gay marriage, while today a full 59 percent approve.

Proposition 8 has rightly become a rallying cry for the advocates of full equality. While the fight against such discrimination continues, the State of Massachusetts should also be held up as an example. An example of equality actually enriching the institution of marriage, not tearing it apart. An example of how tolerance can overcome even the most deep seated fear.

Two weeks ago, Jesse Helms began what will hopefully be a long and unimpeded period of not existing.

Elizabeth Dole, who succeeded Helms after his welcomed retirement, ascended to his seat after a long career of executive appointments and wrecking Bob Dole's first marriage.

Yesterday in the Senate, she tried to name an AIDS/HIV prevention bill after Helms. Helms would be the same hate-filled, racist who, when trying to block funding for the Ryan White AIDS bill, blamed victims of the disease for their  "deliberate, disgusting and revolting conduct"

Mrs. Dole has some bad, bad karma coming her way for this repulsive pandering. Nothing as pathetic as, say, having to watch her husband shill erection pills on television, but something like that.

Update: Daniel Bice has the audio of a Tom Reynolds phone call to state Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee, 20), “a veteran Milwaukee Democrat, (who) has a direct and personal interest in what Reynolds was doing, so she signed up - using a fake name - with Clean Sweep Wisconsin.”

This is the link is to the audio of the Reynolds phone call, and the URL is: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=770314

Transcription of the Reynolds call, in part, follows:

“… In Milwaukee here, we are working on a full slate of 12 candidates; eight on the north side, and four on the south side. And we are at eight or nine candidates right now. ... We have a candidate against Sinicki and a candidate against Staskunas. And we're still working on Zepnick and Colón….”

An anti-Catholic-Reynolds ally in Colón’s district? That likely will not play especially well there; though it’s a fair bet that Reynolds’ brand of politics and hate will not play well anywhere in the Milwaukee area. See the Milwaukee-area Democratic State Reps chart at the end of this post.
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What does a rightwing candidate recruited by a notorious anti-Catholic, Tom Reynolds, say if his/her name is on the ballot challenging Milwaukee-area Assembly Democrats in the September primary?

As little as possible.

And he/she hides from the public, staying in the shadows, an odd posture for candidates for public office, though consistent with the past odd behavior of former state senator Reynolds who reportedly had asked of prospective staff whether they were virgins.

The first candidates for Tom Reynolds' (R-Outer Reaches) Clean Sweep Wisconsin's project to run some 12 candidates against Milwuakee-area Democratic incumbents in the Democratic primary are now public.

The Reynolds' folks are: Phil Landowski (running against state Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee)) and Josh Hoisington (running against Tony Staskunas (D-West Allis), West Allis being Reynolds' home turf), reports Daniel Bice in yesterday's Journal-Sentinel.

U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-What's Wrong With You Sick, Frothing Morons?) is finally dead. Happy birthday, U.S. of A.

Helms was a hate-slathered cretin, whose campaigns and governing showed American democracy at its worst. "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races," thundered just one of many Helms' attacks over the decades.

Conservatives are saddened by the news. "Ol' 27 percent" George W. Bush was soiling his White House crying towel, calling Helms "kind," "decent" and "humble."

And while he had some admirers in Wisconsin, most notably Supreme Court Justice-Elect Mike Gableman's ad-writing team, Helms was a racist thug and the world mourns, simply because it took him so, so long to exit the world he befouled for over eight decades.

For my dough, I'm hoping Wonkette Editor Ken Layne has penned in "Jesse Helms: American Garbage," what will be a waterfall of appropriate tributes.

Feel free to add even better ones to the comment portion of this blog. Helms deserves it for all he did to people of color, gays, the poor and this nation's sense of decency. 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported today that gay Wisconsin couples going to California to get married might be subject to prosecution when they get back home. The story points to an obscure Wisconsin law which prohibits Wisconsinites from going to another state to get married, if that marriage would otherwise be illegal back at home. Apparently the law was established to guard against under age couples from getting married in other states and coming back to Wisconsin. Some gay couples have called off their plans to get married in California, specifically citing the Wisconsin law. The statute calls for up to a $10,000 fine and nine months in jail.

Legislators quoted in the story don’t think that the obscure law would apply to these gay couples, but it seems that the decision to prosecute would be up to each individual District Attorney. Even the legislator that sponsored the anti-gay marriage amendment suggests that the law would not apply to gay couples getting married in California. That wasn’t enough to stop anti-gay crusader Julaine Appling from calling for the prosecution of gay couples. As if cheerleading for anti-gay discrimination wasn’t enough, now she seems to be calling for the outright jailing of people that simply want to get married. If you needed any more proof at just how obsessed and extreme some people are on this subject you need not look any further than Appling.

The following text (in two e-mails) below was received from timkisting@aol.com, commenting on a brief analysis (SC Decision Striking Down Gun Control Is Fine with This Progressive) on the Supreme Court decision, District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), that was picked up in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Sunday.

Well, let's hope this guy, timkisting@aol.com, doesn't own a gun.

The ad hominem attempt (below among many) to insult by raising the possibility of my being a "fag" merits a reply: Being gay is okay. As is working for the people residing in "Milwaukee's ghetto population".

Although Wisconsinites passed the “marriage amendment” in 2006, polls at the time showed that they were supportive of domestic partnerships and civil unions. Advocates warned that the amendment would endanger both. Supporters of the amendment disingenuously claimed that it was only an effort to legally define marriage and not one to kill domestic partnership benefits and civil unions. A similar scenario happened in Michigan and last week their State Supreme Court ruled that public universities and other entities of the state government cannot provide domestic partner benefits to the partners of gay employees. The courts decision was based on the constitutional amendment on marriage that passed in that state.

It is only a matter of time before someone on the extreme right challenges domestic partnership benefits in Wisconsin, using the exact same formula used in Michigan. If those that supported the “marriage amendment” were really serious in 2006, they would take action now to prevent that from happening.

“Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it’s the death knell of this country.”

“I honestly think it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam – which I think is a big threat, OK?”

When Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern said these disgraceful and disgusting words, she thought no one was listening. Speaking before a group of her supporters at what she believed was a private gathering, the Republican lawmaker viciously attacked LGBT Americans. But, every word of Rep. Kern’s bigoted tirade was caught on tape.

Contact Speaker Michael Huebsch and his co-hort Representative Stephen Nass, and let them know that you object to their destroying Wisconsin's world-class educational institution.

Wisconsin used to take pride in its university system supported by a bipartisan consensus to create a world-class educational facility.

Now, under the leadership of the GOP-led state Assembly, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and its sister campuses are under assault, deadly assault.

From the blog Waxing America: