Wis. Braces for Attack on DP Registry

Following Republican election gains in the governor's office and the legislature, gay advocates in Wisconsin are readying for a fight to preserve the state's domestic partnership registry, which grants dozens of protections to same-sex couples.

According to TheNorthwestern.com, Fair Wisconsin, the state's leading gay rights group, fears that Republicans' professed focus on economic issues is hiding a long-standing interest in repealing the domestic partnership registry, already the subject of an ongoing lawsuit in light of the 2006 constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages and civil unions.

"'(Governor-elect) Scott Walker and (Lieutenant Governor-elect) Rebecca Kleefisch have been very clear about how they feel about domestic partnerships and we are prepared to defend the legislation,' said Katie Belanger, executive director of Fair Wisconsin, the state's leading gay rights advocacy group," reported TheNorthwestern.com.

Walker vetoed a domestic partnership measure as Milwaukee County executive and said he would have rejected the state's initiative. Meanwhile, Kleefisch compared same-sex unions to marriages with animals and inanimate objects in a radio show this year.

In the legislature, state representative Penny Bernard Schaber told TheNorthwestern.com that she expects Republicans in the majority will try to dissolve domestic partnerships.