T here could be a legal challenge to the state's domestic partner registry. As part of the recently signed state budget, county clerks will soon have to offer a domestic partner registry to same sex couples around Wisconsin. Not so fast says Julaine Appling of the Wisconsin Family Council. "Our lawyers have been looking at this domestic partnership registry since the day it was introduced," Appling. "Our lawyers are looking right now at what a legal challenge would look like." Appling claims the budget language violates the 2006 Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage and any similar "union" sanctioned by the state. But Scott Ross with One Wisconsin Now says Appling and other proponents claimed the amendment would not ban what the state is now doing. "Clearly the people of Wisconsin, in voting for the amendment, if they were to have listened to Julaine Appling and its proponents, they were not voting to ban civil unions," says Ross. "So I don't understand why they are creating a lawsuit now, to stop what the legislature did." The registry is to be made available by August 3rd, assuming legal action doesn't delay implementation. Appling says that's just one element of the worst ever budget for Wisconsin families. "It puts an increased tax burden on families. It in essence redefines families by the domestic partnership registry that the governor asked for and got." "They need to explain themselves," says Ross. "They're the ones who were saying that this didn't ban civil union protection when they were trumpeting the idea, pushing for the amendment," says Ross. "They need to answer the question, were they lying then, or are they lying now?" The budget language provides inheritance and visitation rights for same sex couples.
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