Wisconsin } A Gay Civil Rights Won For Not But Not Civil Rights

I know there are some middle-of-the-roaders out there — dwindling though their numbers may be — who lament the Legislature's inability to accomplish much bipartisan good this last session.
No venture capital or mining bills to create jobs, no redistricting reform, no progress on curbing the state's alcohol-related ills.
They did get a balanced budget, but only as a battle in a larger partisan war.
Meanwhile, the session was a rousing success for the two major political parties.
For them, the legislative win-loss record is less important than the campaign donations, excitement among their respective bases, and votes that are generated when they dig into just about every piece of political red meat possible — from unions to sex ed to guns.
Conspicuously absent, though, was the one issue actually worthy of all the self-righteous grandstanding our legislators are so fond of: gay marriage.
Because unlike this particular no-brainer, most of the other issues the legislature has been fighting over have at least mildly cogent arguments on both sides:
Collective bargaining is good for workers, but it's also used to the detriment of public budgets and public services. Guns kill people, but concealed carry hasn't led to more violence. Sex ed curbs unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, but only abstinence does so 100 percent of the time.
Even the new voter ID requirement, while clearly a solution in search of a problem, should be effective in guarding against voter fraud, even one case of which arguably disenfranchises legal voters.
But the argument against gay marriage? That it could somehow degrade an institution already plenty degraded by everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to the creators of "The Bachelor." Please.
It's possible gay marriage hasn't been much of an issue because Republicans who control the Legislature are not likely to challenge the 2006 constitutional amendment that bans it, and a lawsuit challenging the state's domestic partner registry is still in the courts.
"The legislature is letting (marriage equality) lie," said Katie Belanger, executive director of the gay-rights group Fair Wisconsin.
Legislators might also perceive the current situation for what it is: a rare political compromise. The only problem is that domestic partnership provides gays with neither all the rights nor the cultural acceptance of marriage. That's not a compromise; it's bigotry.
During the recall elections this May and June, voters who think government is as much about morality and civil rights as it is about budget balancing and job creation need not look much further than the candidates' stances on gay marriage.
Not surprisingly, they're likely to find that it's mostly Democrats who support the idea, including candidates in the race for governor as of Friday morning.
So yes, gay marriage could easily become another divisive partisan war. But it would seem that's what legislators want anyway.
And in this case, at least it's a war worth waging.

Contact Chris Rickert at 608-252-6198 or crickert@madison.com, as well as on Facebook and Twitter (@ChrisRickertWSJ). His column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

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