Open for business: First couples sign up for domestic partner registry
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Capital Times: Madison resident Bob Klebba and his partner of 11 years, David Waugh, were one of the first couples to head to the Dane County Clerk’s Office Monday morning to sign up for the state’s new domestic partner registry. They were married last summer in California before that state passed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. So while their marriage is legal in California, it is not recognized in Wisconsin, which also passed a constitutional ban in 2006. That’s why the couple has mixed feelings about the benefits provided by the registry, when compared to a legal marriage. “For us personally, we are taking one step backward by signing up,” Klebba says. “The registry allows the authorities to recognize us as lesser citizens and not to recognize us for what we truly are ... a married couple.” Tamara Packard, an attorney with Cullen Weston Pines & Bach, says same-sex couples who have been legally married outside Wisconsin should not share that fact with county clerks when going to apply for the registry. “For legal purposes in Wisconsin, it’s as if those marriages never happened,” Packard says. “As horrible as that is to say, they are not married in the state of Wisconsin’s eyes.”
There are some 1,400 to 2,400 same-sex couples living in Dane County, and turnout Monday was robust as couples took advantage of the historic piece of legislation signed by Gov. Jim Doyle June 29. While the registry will now afford same-sex couples some 40 legal protections previously extended only to married couples, it falls short in making all couples equal. Despite this fact, three members of Wisconsin Family Action have filed suit. They claim the registry violates the state’s constitutional ban on gay marriage. “The registry doesn’t even come close to providing equality,” says Emily Dudak Taylor, an attorney with the Law Center for Children & Families in Madison. “That’s why the lawsuit is so laughable.”
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