Well, if Cousin Ruthie said it, it had to be real, but
all the same, it seemed incredible. And indeed, The Huffington Post confirmed it:
The "marriage evasion" law criminalizes leaving the state to “contract a marriage
that is prohibited or void” in Wisconsin. Couples violating the marriage
evasion statute can be fined up to “$10,000 or imprisoned for not more than 9 months
or both.”
So that means that a gay or lesbian couple who drive
across the bridge to the Twin Cities, get married, and then drive back over the
bridge to Wisconsin have committed a criminal act in Wisconsin.
There’s good and bad news. First, the law has been on the
books since 1915, when “marriage evasion” laws were popular: the laws were
intended to prevent inter-racial marriages, in general, but also marriages to
minors or recently divorced people. (Wisconsin, apparently, has a six-month
waiting period for remarriage….)
The other good news?
The law hasn’t been enforced since 2001, when a man left
the state to get remarried 30 days after his divorce was finalized.
Now for the bad news: the law is still on the books. And
guess what? Well, here’s the Wisconsin Gazette on the subject:
ACLU of
Wisconsin executive director Chris Ahmuty said it’s not difficult to imagine a
rogue district attorney apprehending a same-sex couple married out of state in
order to make a statement or score political points, just as renegade county
clerks in New Mexico and Pennsylvania are handing out marriage licenses to test
the law in those states.
And, in fact, the Gazette
goes on to say that in 2009, the CEO of the Wisconsin Family Council (note—any title with
“freedom, “family,” or “heritage” in it should give you the shivers) said this:
“You purposely
left the state or another state and you get married and you know it’s not going
to be legal where you reside and you have every intention of returning. That’s
defrauding the government,” Appling said in the interview.
And who is Appling? Well, the Gazette wonderfully supplies the answer:
Appling, a
never-married woman who has lived for decades with another never-married woman
in a home they own jointly in Watertown, continues to work fiercely against
equality.
Well, any conscientious blogger
would check out the Wisconsin Family Council, so I took a deep breath, and
clicked on the link. Fortunately, though, I got a message saying that the
website certificate was invalid. This I took to be a sign: the universe was
letting me off the hook. But who was Julaine Appling?
Well, The Huffington Post, via the Cap
Times had the answer:
"the most important social conservative
in the state." Oh, and she
was also reported to be the driving force behind the (gag) defense of marriage
amendment to Wisconsin’s constitution in 2006.
And here’s what she said when asked
about whether she was, err, you know…that way:
"I would
submit there’s not a person alive who hasn’t said, 'Well, I wonder,' because of
the culture we live in, the time we live in," Appling, 60, told the Times.
"It's a natural part of the maturation process. It's not a life
sentence."
Oh, but not to worry, because
“people have left gay lifestyles by the droves successfully.”
Whew, so there’s hope!
Which is lucky, because it seems
I’m on the slippery slope. Fortunately, Mr. Fernández hates the French, so I’m
unlikely to be tempted, but an Iowan, living in that cesspool of sin that
permits gay marriage, has news for me. You can see it in the clip below, or—so
says the Iowan—you can simply google
“red herring,” and what you’ll see will shock you.
Well, the red herring was a red
cape to my inner bull, so I did that, and discovered nothing more noxious than
the standard definitions. But add “gay marriage” into the mix? Your eyes will
sear in horror!
“Kids, I’m sorry to tell you that
my gay marriage deeply threatens your straight—and putative—marriages. Just
felt you should know.”
Felt like I should warn the guys at
the coffee shop.
“Hey, you’re gay? Always thought
you were straight…” said Mendoza-who-is-not
Montalvo (don’t ask…).
I tell them about Wisconsin, that
it’s a criminal offense to go get married—if you’re gay—in another state.
Lucía, busy sweeping the floor, is
totally uninterested in my sexual orientation—WHAT!—but remarks over her shoulder
that “don’t worry, my generation will take care of that.”
Which it will, of course. Julaine Appling is in her young 60’s—will any
girl of Lucía’s age lead the closeted life that Appling has? Not likely.
There was a time when, “I’m” and “gay,”
were the two hardest words in the language to put together. But practice has
made it easy: I’ve told bosses, parents, strangers that I’m gay. And now, I’m
gonna tell the public about it. In twenty states—including Wisconsin—gay
couples have gone to court to challenge the state amendments that invalidates
their marriages.
I bought an apartment next to Raf’s
parents, so that someone could live there and look after them. And I asked the
notary, who described me in the deed, if it was really true that I was soltero, or single. Legally, yes, he
said, according to the laws of Puerto Rico. He then went home, tossed and
turned all night, and called the bar association the next day. They had been
waiting for the call….
“Hey, I’m a footnote in the legal
history of Puerto Rico,” I ran around telling everybody. I and Raf had become
the first reference legally to a same-sex marriage in a legal document in
Puerto Rico. Being a footnote feels great—try it sometime…
So why not be a paragraph?
Newhouse versus the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico!
Like it?
