Wisconsin soundly rejects gay marriages
By Rick LaFrombois
Wausau Daily Herald
Opponents of an amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions hoped Wisconsin voters would be the first in the nation to oppose such a measure. Their hopes were dashed Tuesday.
Wisconsin voters approved the marriage amendment Tuesday by a 16 percent margin (58 percent to 42 percent), according to unofficial results. As of press time, the margin appeared even wider in Marathon County, where some 68 percent of voters favored the amendment.
That's likely disappointing news for voters such as Catherine Mitchell and Kathy Conway, both of Wausau, who opposed the amendment.
"I'd like to see Wisconsin resisting the national tide of restricting marriage," said Mitchell, 49, minutes after casting her vote at the Boys & Girls Club of the Wausau Area. "Restricting constitutional rights on how people are living their lives is not a good precedent to set."
Conway, who is married, said the amendment is not needed, because gay marriages already are illegal in the state. And secondly, she is not opposed to gay marriage.
"If people are committed to each other and want to go solidify that as a marriage, that ought to be available to them and society ought to embrace that couple," Conway said.
Wisconsin voters instead embraced what proponents of the marriage amendment called "traditional marriage" as being between one man and one woman.
That's how God intended it to be, said Kevin Kerscher, a brother at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Oratory of the Immaculate Conception on Grand Avenue in Wausau. A brother is someone who dedicates his life to the church but is not a priest.
"It's not really a question of what people think or believe about (marriage)," said Kerscher, 27, prior to casting his vote for the amendment at the Boys & Girls Club. "It's what God has ordained in the Scriptures."
Catholic Church leaders had spoken in favor of the amendment.
"(A gay marriage) could not be a real marriage, even if it's a legal marriage," Kerscher said. "To God, it's not a real marriage unless it's what he ordains it to be."
Eight states had ban-gay-marriage amendments on their ballots; Idaho, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia joined Wisconsin in approving them, while results were pending in Arizona, Colorado and South Dakota. Similar amendments passed previously in all 20 states that had considered them.
State voters say 'I do' to marriage amendment
Civil unions may be banned; lawsuits could follow
By BILL GLAUBER for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Madison - Traditional values trumped Wisconsin's progressive political traditions Tuesday as the state's voters matched the national mood and approved a state constitutional amendment on marriage.
Early returns indicated strong voter approval of the referendum, the Associated Press reported. Wisconsin had been viewed as an opportunity for gay rights proponents to turn back the ballot box tide against gay marriage and civil unions, an issue that ignited in 2004 after Massachusetts allowed same-sex couples to marry. That year, 13 states passed same-sex marriage bans. Six other states passed bans in other years, and eight states, including Wisconsin, had referendums on the ballot Tuesday.
"What we're seeing is an affirmation that Wisconsinites understand that one-man, one-woman marriage is not up for redefinition," said Julaine Appling, executive director of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin, which supported the amendment.
She said she wasn't surprised that Wisconsin joined the growing list of states that have passed marriage amendments. "Every time the people get to speak, they say, 'Don't mess with marriage,' " she said.
Appling's group held a low-key election night event that began with a prayer service at Monona Oaks Community Church. In the church hall, about 100 people ate from a three-tier wedding cake as they watched election returns.
In contrast, hundreds turned out for Fair Wisconsin's post-election party in the Madison Ballroom at Monona Terrace, where they watched returns on giant video displays.
"We came up short in our struggle for equality," Mike Tate, campaign chairman for Fair Wisconsin, said in a concession speech shortly after 10 p.m. "While we lost today, we will not lose in the long term."
Tate noted that many in the audience, who told their personal stories to voters across the state, "came out to more people than you ever wanted to."
"We did not lose because the people of Wisconsin don't like gay people," he said. "We lost because the people of Wisconsin don't know gay people..."
What upsets me the most is that people are so ignorant they don't even know how to vote for themselves. Case in point:
"...At the polls, some appeared confused by the wording of the amendment, which was posed as a question.
"It should be a man and a woman only," said Ken Brill, 83, a retired optometrist voting at Wauwatosa East High School. "I voted yes. Was that right? The way it was set up was very confusing. But a friend of mine told me to vote 'yes.' "