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Madison - Gov. Scott Walker believes a new law that gives gay couples hospital visitation rights violates the state constitution and has asked a judge to allow the state to stop defending it.
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Democrats who controlled the Legislature in 2009 changed the law so that same-sex couples could sign up for domestic partnership registries with county clerks to secure some - but not all - of the rights afforded married couples.
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Wisconsin Family Action sued last year in Dane County circuit court, arguing that the registries violated a 2006 amendment to the state constitution that bans gay marriage and any arrangement that is substantially similar.
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Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen refused to defend the lawsuit, saying he agreed the new law violated the state constitution. Then-Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, hired Madison attorney Lester Pines to defend the state. Walker, a Republican, replaced Doyle in January and fired Pines in March. On Friday, Walker filed a motion to stop defending the case.
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In 2006, 60% of state voters signed off on changing the constitution to ban gay marriage and a "legal status identical or substantially similar to marriage" for same-sex couples.
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Wisconsin Family Action advocated for the amendment. The group first sued the state over the same-sex registries shortly after they were created in 2009, taking its case directly to the state Supreme Court in hopes of getting a quick verdict. The high court declined to hear the case, and the group then filed a lawsuit last year in Dane County circuit court.
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Once again, I cannot help but believe that the world would be a far better place if Christianity - or at least the Christofascist version - were a dead religion. If there is a God, I suspect many of the reserved seats in Hell will be for the Christianists and not the gays.
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