Wisconsin Ban Supporters Masquerade As County Fair Workers
Mineral Point - Local police were called to the Iowa County Fair here over the Labor Day weekend to force a group supporting the proposed marriage and civil union ban  to leave the grounds after they were discovered to be impersonating county fair workers.
  The four day fair, which ran August 30 through September 3, welcomes political groups who rent booth space in the fair's exhibit hall. Among the booths at this year's fair were the local district Democratic and Republican parties and Wisconsin Won't Discriminate, the southwest Wisconsin action network for Fair Wisconsin - the group opposing the amendment.
  The group supporting the ban donned T-shirts imprinted with the words "Fair Worker."  Group members set up at the fair's front gate next to actual fair staff taking tickets and handed out their brochures to every car entering the grounds. Brochures allegedly referred to the Wisconsin Coalition For Traditional Marriage, a group affiliated with the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin, the organization coordinating support for the constitutional amendment that would prohibit any legal recognition of unmarried couples, regardless of sexual orientation.
  "The ticket takers, being bona-fide volunteer fair workers themselves, didn't know anything was amiss and didn’t know what was in the brochures, until the fair office started hearing complaints. And then more complaints," Wisconsin Won't Discriminate blogger Coleman wrote in a report on the incident.
  Fair officials then asked the group to leave the entrance area. When the group refused, local police intervened. The group left and apparently no arrests were made.
   The ban supporters could have obtained a booth, even with last minute notice, according to Iowa County Fair commissioner Phil Crawford. "The group would have been welcome to pay their fee and secure exhibit space like anyone else," he said.
 Crawford also noted that the fair commission has never allowed anyone to distribute any kind of literature at the fair gates, or on the fair grounds themselves. “It’s just not appropriate,” he said. “People are coming to see the pigs and the chickens, not to be confronted by any political campaign.”