Same-sex couples
from Wisconsin who marry in California can face nine
months in jail and a $10,000 fine on returning home, CNN
reported last Tuesday.
The penalty,
based on a 1915 law originally enacted to prevent
interracial marriages performed in other states, is being
revived to persecute same-sex couples who tie the
knot in California. "If you leave the state to
get married with the intent of coming back to the
state, you can be subject to imprisonment for nine months
and up to a $10,000 fine," Glenn Carlson of the
LGBT advocacy group Fair Wisconsin told CNN in a video
interview.
The Wisconsin law
states that "if any person residing and intending to
continue to reside in this state who is disabled or
prohibited from contracting marriage under the laws of
this state goes into another state or country and
there contracts a marriage prohibited or declared void
under the laws of this state, such marriage shall be void
for all purposes in this state with the same effect as
though it had been entered into in this state."
However, not only
will the marriage be void, but couples can
also be punished to the full extent of the law.
The penalties
sound fair to Julaine Appling of the Wisconsin Family
Council. Appling told CNN that same-sex couples who break
the Wisconsin law should be charged with fraud.
"It's a defrauding of the government,"
she said. (The Advocate)
