The Editorial You Didn't Get To See...

Those of you who saw my anti-Wisconsin Marriage Amendment editorial in the Green Bay Press Gazette November 30 got to see a second, significantly revised version the piece (if you have trouble loading the page - I have on several occasions - you can also get the Campbell's Condensed Soup version over at Action Wisconsin's "No On The Amendment" blog).

Josh Freker, Action Wisconsin's Energizer Bunny of a Communications Director, literally spent months trying to persuade the GBPG's editors to run an OpEd on the amendment. He worked with me to coordinate the column and made a valid criticism of the original piece. I listed the opposition's arguments in a way that would allow a casual reader skimming the piece to pick up their side's view much easier than the opinion I was arguing.

However, the original was a little less personal and (I feel) hit the other side arguments harder with factoids I could not include in the revised piece due to space limitations. It also better countered the Camille Solberg editorial that appeared a day earlier.

(Aside #1: I believe those who told me it was ghosted by the FRI. The rhetoric was classically Appling-esque.)

(Aside #2: Can you imagine if the forces of bigotry and discrimination's "let the people decide" argument had prevailed over the last century or so? Camille probably would be spending her time trying to win the vote for women and equal civil rights for Latinos or other people of color, rather than serving as a diversity shill for the overwhelming white, upper class forces supporting this amendment initiative.)

So I'm sharing the original draft here for my loyal and entry-starved blog readers. I've added a little formatting that obviously would not have been in the original submission, had it been printed in the paper. Here goes:

About this time next year, if the Republican-controlled legislature gets its way, Wisconsin citizens will have the opportunity to vote to adopt or reject what its supporters call the "Wisconsin Marriage Amendment" to our state's Constitution.
The amendment reads as follows: "Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state."
Now that you've read the language of the amendment, I want you to take a little quiz. Answer "true" or "false" to the following statements, all of which have been used to promote the amendment:

1. This amendment is necessary to make gay marriage illegal in Wisconsin.

2. This amendment will protect traditional marriages.

3. This amendment was introduced to uphold traditional values in our state.

All the above statements are false. Allow me to explain.

This amendment is necessary to make gay marriage illegal in Wisconsin.
The statement is false because same-sex marriage is already illegal in Wisconsin. Should this referendum be on the ballot and fail, Wisconsin's heterosexual "husband and wife" definition of marriage statute remains intact. Gay and lesbian couples will continue to be prohibited from marrying in our state.

However, the broad, vague language prohibiting "any legal status... for unmarried individuals" likely will hurt hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin's unmarried heterosexual couples impacted by that second sentence. In states that have passed amendments with such similar language - Ohio and Michigan to name two - domestic violence laws have been ruled inapplicable and private sector domestic partner benefits have been called into question for unmarried straight couples.

Given that a 2004 Business Week survey showed that 49.6% of all adults in the United States live in unmarried relationships, the impact could be significant. The vague language of the proposed amendment simply goes too far.

This amendment will protect traditional marriages.
That statement is not only false but illogical. Denying same sex couples any legal recognition of their unions will do absolutely nothing to stop the 50% divorce rate that currently plagues the so-called traditional marriages. I find it ironic that nondenominational evangelical Christians and Baptists - the two religious groups most strongly opposed to gay marriage equality - have the #1 and #2 highest divorce rates, according to fellow evangelical George Barna's exhaustive research study.

I won't name that irony as hypocritical. I'll let Jesus do it for me. Read Matthew, Chapter 7 - all of it.

On the subject of hypocrisy, let's talk about the third statement: This amendment was introduced to uphold traditional values in our state. If the value argument were true, this issue could have been resolved nine months ago, during the Spring 2005 elections.

Assembly Speaker and 8th District Republican Congressional candidate John Gard made his intentions clear in his June 2, 2005 letter to Wisconsin's lead supporter of the marriage amendment, Julaine Appling of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin. In his letter Gard wrote: "the best time to bring this issue before the voters is when we have the potential for high voter turnout," noting the November, 2006 election would be the next such vote.

Political junkies have been quick to note the November, 2006 election also will determine who will be the next governor in Wisconsin and who will go to Washington to represent the 8th Congressional District in an open race for that seat.

All the stained-glass rhetoric about traditional marriage professed by the amendment's supporters masks the true perversion that will occur if this amendment becomes part of our state's Constitution: the writing of discrimination against all unmarried couples, gay or straight, into a document that currently defines our rights as citizens of Wisconsin.

Several thousand same-sex in the Green Bay Press Gazette's readership area volunteered to report their unions in the 2000 US Census. Tens of thousands more unmarried heterosexual couples live here as well. Tens of thousands more dependent children live with these couples.

How many people will be denied full equality so a political party can make a short-term gain? The so-called Wisconsin Marriage Amendment protects no one and has the potential to hurt thousands of your friends and neighbors. No matter what your views about gay marriage, if you oppose discrimination, you should oppose the so-called Wisconsin Marriage Amendment.