July 11, 2008

Get Married in California, Go to Jail in Wisconsin

It’s not just the cheese anymore.

PageOneQ sums up the jaw-dropping idiocy and appalling unfairness of Wisconsin’s anti-gay marriage law:

Wisconsin law: Gay couples can be imprisoned, fined $10,000

California, the second state to recognize same-sex couples’ right to civil marriage, became the first to extend that right to couples residing outside the state when its landmark Supreme Court ruling took effect in mid June. Most out-of-state couples, with the exception of those residing in Massachusetts and New York, know that their marriages will not be recognized when they return home.

For couples in Wisconsin, however, second-class citizenship may simply be the appetizer to the main course: Jail time.

In addition to an amendment voted into Wisconsin’s constitution in 2006 barring recognition of same-sex marriages, a law on the books prohibits its residents from leaving the state to enter a marriage that would not be legally recognized when they return.

Wisconsin statute 765.04(1) reads:

If any person residing and intending to continue to reside in this state who is disabled or prohibited from contracting marriage under the laws of this state goes into another state or country and there contracts a marriage prohibited or declared void under the laws of this state, such marriage shall be void for all purposes in this state with the same effect as though it had been entered into in this state.

“The law has been around since 1915,” noted Fair Wisconsin’s Glenn Carlson of its age, “which was five years before women got the right to vote.”

Violation of this law opens up the possibility for a fine of up to $10,000, and up to nine months imprisonment, which Fair Wisconsin warned its members on the heels of California’s may ruling.

More, including links and a video, at PageOneQ.

Of course, Wisconsin’s right-wing gay haters are clamoring for enforcement of the old law, which is a relic of the same era of interracial-marriage hysteria in which a similar, anti-miscegenation law (preventing out-of-staters from marrying) was enacted in Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts legislature has decided it’s time to revisit that ancient law, still on the books, and appears poised to repeal it as early as next week.

Wisconsin, despite its more recent Prop-22-like assault on the rights of same-sex couples, is not a hopelessly red state; it’s purple, actually, saved in great part by the liberal oasis of its capital, Madison.

We hope some smart Wisconsin lawmaker wakes up soon, and starts the ball rolling to strike this pointless, useless, and discriminatory law from the books.

Posted by: Sapphocrat

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