Testimony on AB781

I want to talk a little bit about the reasons for a bill such as the one we are discussing today. Certainly, although it sounds like its aim, the bill cannot be about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, any more than former laws that prevented interracial marriage. I have to believe that if the state believed that marriage was sacred there would be no need for divorce laws. We would be discussing a bill that would preclude couples from ending their sacred contract. Certainly this bill cannot be about marriage being solely for the purpose of procreation and the making of a family. If that were the case, then the state would not have allowed my widowed mother to remarry past a child-bearing age, after her children were all legal adults. Certainly it cannot be about codifying as law the moral tenets of any particular religion. If that were the case then we would be discussing amending the Constitution of both the state and federal governments so that there would no longer be a guarantee of separation of church and state.

What, then, could be the motivating force behind such a needless bill? I understand that not knowing anyone gay or lesbian can lead to fear from lack of knowledge. Perhaps that is the case. But I can assure you that, like you, most of us are good people who only want to live their lives. Anyone who knows me and Brian, my partner of nine years, knows that we are upstanding, good citizens (who will be voting in the next election) who are in a very loving and committed relationship. Without the sanctity of marriage, without the blessing of the state or church, without the approval of those who would vote for this bill, without any kind of support for our relationship but what we get from our own community, we are committed to each other for the rest of our lives and beyond. We have already made that work longer and better than over 50% of state and church-sanctioned marriages in this country today. You cannot tell me we are second class citizens. You cannot tell me that we are not in love.

As legislators you should take the moral high ground and vote this bill down. As legislators you should be in the lead in protecting all of Wisconsin’s citizens. My great-great grandfather, Absalom Townsend, was an elected Representative in this very house in 1855. He was a Republican. In 1855 the Republican Party was new, having been founded in Ripon, Wisconsin, primarily as a party to end slavery. In 1855 the Party of Lincoln was the party of freedom. It was the party that wanted equality for all and second-class status for none. I appeal to those of you on this committee who are children of that tradition to return to that tradition, to take a stand for human rights for all, and to vote no on this bill.