Monday July 5, 2010
Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules Unanimously to Uphold Gay ‘Marriage’ Ban
MADISON, Wisconsin, July 5, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously refused on Wednesday to tear down a voter-approved constitutional amendment that affirms marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and prohibits the state from manufacturing other legal relationships that masquerade as marriage.
Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed a friend-of-the-court brief last year on behalf of the Wisconsin Family Council in defense of the amendment, which a lower court upheld as constitutional.
“Voters adopted the marriage amendment in Wisconsin for one clear and simple reason: to protect the institution of marriage,” said ADF Litigation Counsel Jim Campbell. “We should be strengthening – not undermining – marriage, which is one man and one woman. Once again, activists tried to use the courts to force something on the people that they have repeatedly and overwhelmingly rejected.”
Wisconsin Family Council President Julaine K. Appling said that the lawsuit’s claim that the amendment violated the multiple-subject rule “was just a sneaky attempt to tear down what the voters clearly wanted.”
“The court was right to reject this baseless lawsuit,” said Appling. “Judges and politicians should never toss aside the will of the people in order to impose a system that intentionally deprives children of a mom and dad.”
In November 2006, more than 59% of Wisconsin voters approved the state’s marriage amendment, which spurred University of Wisconsin professor William McConkey to file a lawsuit against the governor in July 2007. In a technical argument, McConkey claimed that the amendment unconstitutionally addresses two subjects instead of one.
ADF attorneys argued, as they have in previous friend-of-the-court briefs, that the amendment deals with only one issue – preserving and protecting the institution of marriage – and therefore does not violate the requirement that a state constitutional provision address only one subject. A Dane County Circuit judge ruled in favor of the amendment in May 2008, agreeing that the amendment’s sole purpose is “the preservation of the unique and historical status of marriage.”
In its 7–0 opinion, the Wisconsin Supreme Court concluded that “the two propositions contained in the marriage amendment plainly relate to the subject of marriage.”
The court continued: “And as the text of the amendment and context of its adoption make clear, the general purpose of the marriage amendment is to preserve the legal status of marriage in Wisconsin as between only one man and one woman. Both propositions in the marriage amendment relate to and are connected with this purpose.”