Critics denounce ruling

Julaine Appling, executive director of Wisconsin Family Action, said the issue of same-sex marriage will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Appling’s group helped lead the effort to put Wisconsin’s ban in place and filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending it in the case before Crabb.

“We are disappointed but not surprised,” she said. “I’m mostly disappointed for the people of this state who spoke loudly and clearly in 2006. What a travesty of justice to have their vote overridden by the stroke of an appointed federal judge’s pen.”

She said supporters of gay marriage should have to do what her group did — persuade lawmakers to back a change to the state constitution in two consecutive legislative sessions and then have voters approve it in a statewide referendum.

“They took the chicken’s way out,” she said of the plaintiffs. “They don’t want a popular vote.”

Milwaukee Catholic Archbishop Jerome Listecki called it “disturbing” that a federal judge would overrule the “manifest will of the people.”

“The decision does not change Catholic teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman,” Listecki said.

The Rev. Jeff Barrow, bishop of the 91,000-member Greater Milwaukee Synod of the Lutheran Church in America, said he was pleased by the ruling. However, he expressed some skepticism out of concern that it could be appealed, and added “laws don’t change people’s minds.”

“I’m happy for the gay couples who have been faithful and unable to access all the benefits that families should be able to access,” said Barrow, whose denomination allows same-sex blessings.

Nationwide, same-sex couples have the right to marry in 19 states and the District of Columbia. Judges in eight — now including Wisconsin —of the remaining 31 states have issued rulings striking down same-sex marriage bans, with those rulings stayed as they work their way through appellate courts.

In Wisconsin, voters in 2006 resoundingly approved the same-sex marriage amendment, 59% to 41%. Every county in the state except Dane voted for it.

The same corrupt federal judiciary that deprived this nation of a legitimate president by refusing to rule on the merits and covering up Obama’s bogus IDs, is now further abusing its power and depriving us of our constitutional rights to decide in which type of society we want to live, by striking bans on gy marriages in 8 states. This became a racket.

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