The Wisconsin Supreme Court sent Julaine Appling packing yesterday, and it couldn't have happened to a more deserving homophobe.
If you aren't familiar with her, Julaine Appling is the director of Wisconsin Family Action, (WFA) a group dedicated to the fight against gay marriage rights. According to the Wisconsin Gazette Ms. Appling is, “a never-married woman who lives with her lifelong companion, Diane Westphall, in a home they own jointly in Watertown,” adding, “The two also work side by side at WFA.”
Ms. Appling first came to our attention in August of 2011, when she joined the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity (AFP) in their effort to resist the recall of Republican state senators who voted to rescind collective bargaining rights for teachers, firefighters and other public sector union members. Under her leadership, the WFA ran fake Democrats in the primaries that were held to find opposition candidates, and mailed fake absentee ballots to gay Wisconsin voters, with instructions to return them by August 11, two days after the election was to be held. This isn't conjecture, the fake ballots not only had the WFA as the return address, Ms. Appling admitted to it:
“We’re part of a coalition, and we’re doing this,” Ms. Appling announced proudly, and she stuck to that line right up until the time she was warned the ballots constituted mail fraud. At that point Ms. Appling suddenly denied any knowledge of the campaign and claimed AFP had used her group’s return address without permission.
Ms. Appling also famously called for nine-month jail sentences and fines of $10,000 for anyone married in another state who attempted to live in Wisconsin.
“I think we have been extremely tolerant to let them live wherever they choose.” said Appling.
To say Ms. Appling is a sworn enemy of the LGBT community is like saying Lindsay Lohan gets stoned. Her latest effort to make life more difficult for gay couples was a legal battle, not to keep them from marrying, but to keep domestic partners in Wisconsin from having any of the same privileges that married couples have.
Wisconsin voters passed a same-sex marriage ban in 2006. But in 2009, the legislature tried to relieve some of the blatant unfairness inherent in such bans. Wisconsin established a Domestic Partnership Registry which extends to same-sex partners the right to be covered by their partner's insurance, to inherit should their partner die, and to visit their partner in a hospital or hospice or to take medical leave to care for their partner.
Even some anti-marriage equality types might think granting those limited rights is, if not an attempt at fairness, a human kindness. Julaine Appling was outraged. She decided the rights extended to gay couples were too similar to the rights of married couples. In her way of thinking, the citizens of Wisconsin had voted to keep gay couples from having any of the rights the registry gave them. So in 2010, she filed a lawsuit to take them away.
Ms. Appling has lost her argument every step of the way, but she refused to give up. Then yesterday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court finally ended her battle. The court ruled against her and the Wisconsin Family Association, saying the Domestic Partner Registry does not violate the state's same-sex marriage ban. Since the the justices are loathe to insert themselves in state legislation where the all the lower court decisions have been in agreement, even if Ms. Appling should appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, it is extremely unlikely they would take the case.
The ruling brings relief to over 2000 Wisconsin couples who, thanks to Ms. Appling, have had to worry about losing the legal rights they gained through the registry.
Ms. Appling released a statement after the high court's ruling, complaining the decision defies the will of Wisconsin’s voters, and trying to make lemonade out of lemons:
"While we are disappointed that the Wisconsin Supreme Court did not agree with us, what’s important is that marriage remains between one man and one woman in Wisconsin and that even in this ruling, the court recognized that marriage is unique and nothing like relationships formed by same-sex couples."
Lambda Legal's Christopher Clark who argued the case had a different take on the verdict, saying:
"We’re thrilled that Wisconsin same-sex couples can keep the limited but very important protections that the domestic partnership registry grants them. Gay and lesbian couples in Wisconsin no longer have to fear that the protections they have will be taken away by unnecessary anti-gay legal action."
While it is of great importance that the couples who have registered as domestic partners are able to keep the legal rights they have been awarded through the registry until marriage equality comes to the state, Wisconsin is one of the many states that has already had its marriage ban declared unconstitutional, and is currently awaiting its day in appeals court.
Someone really ought to prepare Julaine Appling for the inevitable.
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