Doyle Seeks Domestic Partner Protections In Proposed Budget
Also: Proposed Statewide Smoking Ban Will Disproportionately Impact LGBT Community
Madison - In addition to proposing a first-ever 5% general revenue spending cut and $1.4 billion in tax increases in his biennial budget address February 17 Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle also laid out an economic stimulus plan that set as a top priority the creation of domestic partner protections for the state's unmarried couples, including gay and lesbian partnerships.
  “If we want our economy to flourish - if we want to help attract and retain talented workers - it is also time to make sure our state takes some basic steps toward fairness and decency,” Doyle said in prefacing his domestic partner proposal.
  Doyle sought to both provide access to partner benefits and secure partner protections. “First, we can make sure that domestic partners who work for the state have access to benefits,” the governor said. “We can also make sure that a committed couple has visitation rights at a hospital, and the right to take the appropriate leave if one has a serious illness.”
  Doyle then directly addressed the issue of same-sex partners. “This isn't an issue of being gay or straight - we are not judging people's lives here,” he said. “But I don't want the state to stand in the way of someone being able to care for their long-term partner. And I don't want the state to be less competitive at our university and other institutions because we don't treat people fairly.”
  Doyle has been a long-time supporter of domestic partner benefits for University of Wisconsin employees and tried to include them in his initial 2007 budget proposal. The benefits were one of the first items removed by the Joint Finance Committee that year. Doyle later removed them from his second “compromise” budget proposal after the then Republican-controlled Assembly and Democratic-controlled Senate remained deadlocked over his original  bill.
  The state's LGBT equal rights organization, Fair Wisconsin, was ecstatic over the governor's plan. “Fair Wisconsin applauds Governor. Jim Doyle for including limited domestic partnership protections for the state's same-sex couples in his biennial budget proposal,” the group said in a press release. “The proposed domestic partnerships will grant basic protections to same-sex couples in caring, committed relationships, including hospital visitation and the ability to take Family Medical Leave to care for a sick partner.”
  “This is an important step toward ensuring that someone in a committed relationship is able to care for his or her partner,” Fair's Executive Director Glenn Carlson said.  “No one should ever have to worry about being blocked at their partner's hospital room door, or have to make the heartbreaking decision to quit their job in order to care for a seriously ill partner.  This isn't about being gay or straight-it's about being decent.”
  “We commend Governor Doyle for his leadership on this issue,” Carlson continued.  “We look forward to working with legislators to make sure that this fair-minded budget is passed quickly.”
  Fair Wisconsin’s support for the Governor’s proposal was joined by many LGBT social service organizations throughout the state, including the Milwaukee LGBT Center, Madison’s OutReach, LaCrosse’s LGBT Resource Center for the Seven Rivers Region, and Kenosha’s LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin. Advocacy groups such as Milwaukee’s Center Advocates, Madison’s Gay Straight Alliance for Safe Schools, SAGE/Milwaukee, Diverse and Resilient, and the Cream City Foundation's Gay Neighbor Project also supported Doyle.
  According to a poll conducted in January 2009 by the research firm of Greenberg Quinlan and Rosner, about 75% of likely Wisconsin voters support some form of legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples.
  “People in Wisconsin are fair and decent and are ready to provide critical protections to committed couples,” Fair Wisconsin Legislative Director Katie Belanger noted.  “We shouldn't stand in the way of someone being able to care for their long-term partner.”
  UW-Madison Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin also praised Doyle for his domestic partnership initiatives. “We are... also heartened by the governor's reintroduction of domestic partner benefits in this budget proposal,” Martin said in a prepared statement. “The ability to offer these benefits will allow us to improve our competitiveness for faculty and staff.”
  Doyle’s budget proposal includes a mechanism to determine domestic partners. To be eligible for a domestic partnership, two individuals must be of the same sex, both be at least 18 years old, share a common residence, not be nearer of kin than second cousins, and neither party can be married or in another domestic partnership with anyone else.  Domestic partnerships will be administered at the county level, and couples must sign a legal declaration of their commitment.
  Doyle’s domestic partner initiatives did not come as a complete surprise, however. Suggestions of a domestic partner “registry” surfaced in a story in the Wisconsin State Journal last weekend. Right-wing reaction bubbled up almost immediately, with Milwaukee conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes prompted to utter “WTF” in his online blog. Sykes attempted to contrast Doyle’s resistance to a federal mandate to expand Wisconsin’s sex offender registry to his support for domestic partnerships.
  More formalized opposition to Doyle's domestic partner initiatives is expected from fundamentalist religious political action groups such as the Wisconsin Family Council which, in its previous incarnation as the Family Research Institute, spearheaded the successful 2006 vote on the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment to the Wisconsin state constitution. The Council's Executive Director Julaine Appling had signaled her disapproval prior to Doyle's address by characterizing the proposal as “an ill-advised path for our state.”
  Fair Wisconsin has created a web page on its Internet site with information about Wisconsin's proposed domestic partnerships at: www.fairwisconsin.com.
  The Doyle budget also included another proposal that would also impact many gay and lesbian citizens, regardless of their relationship status: a statewide smoking ban that would go into effect 60 days after the budget takes effect. The ban as currently proposed would include bars and taverns. Statistics have shown that Wisconsin’s gay men and women smoke at rates more than double their straight counterparts.
  “This budget finally puts in place a statewide smoking ban,” Doyle said in the budget speech. “Our neighbors have done it; half of the country has done it. We can do this now, and make Wisconsin's workplaces smoke-free.”
  Doyle also proposed adding an additional seventy-five cents in taxes to each pack of cigarettes sold in the state.