US: Wisconsin court rules in favour of same sex domestic partnership registry
An appeals court ruled on Friday that Wisconsin’s same sex domestic partnership registry does not violate a state constitutional amendment which bans marriage equality.
The domestic partnership registry allows gay couples some rights, and benefits, reported Reuters.
The three-judge panel in Wisconsin wrote: “Domestic partnerships carry with them substantially fewer rights and obligations than those enjoyed by and imposed on married couples.”
The rights offered by the registry would include hospital visits, family medical leave to care for an ill partner, health benefits under a partner’s insurance, and the right to inherit assets upon the death of a partner.
The registry was created in 2009 under democratic Governor, Jim Doyle, has more than 2,000 couples on it, said Fair Wisconsin, an equal-rights organisation.
In 2006, voters in Wisconsin approved a referendum to add a consitutional amendment banning marriage equality.
Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, anti-equal marriage campaign group, said: “The people of Wisconsin have strongly affirmed the lifelong, faithful union of a man and a woman as the fundamental building block of civilisation.”
Christopher Clark, an attorney with Lambda Legal, an equal rights advocacy group, said:
“We fought off this ugly attack against the rights and protections currently available to same-sex couples and their families in Wisconsin – a sweet holiday present to loving couples and families.”
The case was brought to the Court of Appeals after a Dane County judge ruled against the Wisconsin Family Action lawsuit last year.
