Domestic partners ready for benefits in WI

KARE 11: At county courthouses around Wisconsin, clerks are getting ready to issue certificates to happy couples. Not married couples, but couples in a domestic partnership. "It's not just symbolic, it is substantial," said Jo Haberman of River Falls, who married her partner, Jane Lansing, last year. They came home to a state that didn't recognize their union at all. Until now. The new law, signed by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle last month, goes into effect on August 3. It will allow non-married couples to take advantage of some of the same rights and benefits as married couples, such as inheritance protections, family and medical leave, and hospital visitation rights. In 2006, Wisconsin passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions. The new law doesn't extend as many rights and protections as many would like. The advocacy group Fair Wisconsin says only 43 specific rights and benefits will extend to domestic partners, as opposed to the more than 200 protections granted to married couples. But Haberman calls the new law a "breakthrough" for her and the woman who's been by her side for 22 years. "If we can have some recognition of that in our home state, that's a wonderful thing," she said. "So yeah, we're looking forward to it." Wisconsin will become the fourth state - along with Colorado, Nevada and Oregon - to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and then pass a separate law granting unmarried partners some of the same rights and protections that come with marriage.

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