Enough is Enough

A few weeks ago the UWSP Student Government Association passed a resolution condemning the Marriage Amendment, urging all students and faculty to vote against it and announcing that they will be advocating their position at voter registration booths. All of this information came to us in a mass email sent to all 10,000+ students and staff at UWSP, claiming that "UWSP students are against the marriage amendment." Their decision came days after the UW Board of Regents passed a similar resolution.

I guess you could say that I was a little upset. Let me get a few things out of the way...I believe in marriage between one man and one woman. I am not entirely behind civil unions. I do not support stripping benefits from unmarried couples or domestic partners (homosexuals or not). I do not think that any law maker, no matter how powerful they think they are, can pass a law preventing two people from loving each other. I would be just as upset with the UWSP SGA had they passed a resolution supporting the marriage amendment. I do not think it is the place for any student government assoc. to claim that the "entire" student body supports something when, in UWSP's case, less than 1% of the student body was polled. Finally, I am appalled that they would advocate a stance, whatever it may be, at voter booths, tainting our electoral process right at the base.

With that said, I would not vote for the amendment if the wording implied that benefits would be stripped from unmarried couples or domestic partners. Since it does not, I am voting "yes."

Here is a portion of an email that I sent to SGA Senators shortly after they passed the resolution:

This is the portion of your legislation that I am contending: "The proposed constitutional amendment would eliminate domestic partnership benefits currently received by many UW students, faculty, and staff, which will have a negative effect on the quality of education at UWSP."

At this point, this is simply untrue. The information I'm providing is meant to show SGA that they cannot accurately interpret the meaning of this legislation and cannot possibly grasp the total ramifications of the amendment should it be passed. First, I have attached a rather lengthy memo to Representative Gundrum from the non-partisan Legislative Council (Council to the State Legislature). Below are the pertinent sections, but I encourage you to read the entire document.

1) "While perhaps not dispositive on its own, the above contemporary expressions of intent, combined with the historical context and plain language of the proposed amendment, lend strong support to the conclusion that the intent of the Legislature with respect to the second sentence of the proposed amendment is to prohibit the recognition of Vermont-style civil unions or a similar type of government-conferred legal status for unmarried individuals that purports to be the same as or nearly the same as marriage in Wisconsin.[1] Similarly, the above expressions of intent also appear to directly refute the notion that the authors of the amendment intend to eliminate the ability of unmarried individuals to arrange their private affairs in ways that may happen to approximate legal rights or benefits extended to married persons."

2) "Many of these statutory rights and benefits, while automatically conferred on married persons, are not exclusive to marriage and can be completely or nearly replicated for unmarried individuals. For example, unmarried individuals may hold property jointly as joint tenants, which generally confers survivorship rights in the other joint tenant. They may create a joint tenancy by expressing an intent to do so. [See s. 700.19 (1), Stats.] A married couple, in comparison, if identified as husband and wife in the title to property, automatically holds property jointly, with survivorship rights, unless they express a different intention. [See s. 700.19 (2), Stats.] Thus, an unmarried couple can create a right of survivorship similar to that enjoyed by a married couple. Other examples of laws that authorize unmarried persons to claim rights and benefits similar to those conferred automatically upon married couples include inheritance rights via a will, health care decision-making via a durable power of attorney for health care, tax advantages through the use of trusts, and protections against domestic abuse. Private parties (and governmental units) can also assist unmarried individuals to enjoy rights or benefits similar to the rights and benefits traditionally afforded to married couples, or families. For example, an employer can choose to extend family status to unmarried persons for purposes of health care benefits. Similarly, a health club could extend family membership benefits to unmarried persons."

After a flood of angry emails SGA has just weathered the pain. There were rumors that they would recant their resolution, apologize for urging students to vote one way or another and reprimand the President for a sending out the mass email. So far...nothing.

We'll see what happens.