A Stitch in Haste

The Wisconsin Legislature has passed, with very partisan carefully crafted timing, a proposed bigot amendment to the state constitution for this November. The proposed amendment is among the more vicious of the versions we have seen, not just banning same-sex marriage but also civil unions and any and every attempt to confer any form of benefit to any unmarried couple. So much for the lie of "it's all about marriage."

This is not new news. The bigots in the Wisconsin Legislature have been lurking strategizing on this issue for a while, holding back until the point when such pandering to bigots grass-roots mobilizing would have the biggest political impact (i.e., when the governor is up for re-election).

Which invites the preliminary question of why, if gays pose such a threat to "traditional" (i.e., 1950's) marriage, wait so long to enact this amendment (besides the fact that gay marriage is already banned by statute in Wisconsin)?

In any case, here's the really interesting part of this theatrical absurdity:

"An issue of this importance will be decided by the people of this state — not an activist judge," Assembly Speaker John Gard, a Republican.

Ah, yes, "activist judges" overriding the "will of the majority." Same old same old.

There's just one problem with this argument in the context of the Wisconsin bigot amendment:

[Critics] contend the amendment would outlaw benefits such as health care provided by many municipal governments and private companies to partners of gay employees.

Supporters acknowledged the courts would have to sort out what benefits could be offered to gay and unmarried couples.

So apparently, in the eyes of the wizened legislators of Wisconsin, the best way to neutralize "activist judges" is by creating a judicial miasma in which each and every attempt by each and every Wisconsin employer or institution, public or private, to be anything other than an purely bigoted policy will now have to be litigated — before those very same "activist judges" — to determine whether it is sufficient discriminatory under this amendment.

Pure genius — or pure something.

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More thoughts from Wisconsin blogger PurpleScarf.