Wisconsin Corrupt Atty General Reduces Himself to Partisan Troll

"After seeing the expressions of joy on the faces of so many newly wedded couples featured in media reports, I find it difficult to impose a stay on the event that is responsible for eliciting that emotion, even if the stay is only temporary. Same-sex couples have waited many years to receive equal treatment under the law, so it is understandable that they do not want to wait any longer. However, a federal district court is required to follow the guidance provided by the Supreme Court." (emphasis added)

So reads U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb's ruling in Wolf v. Walker, declaring Wisconsin's ban on  against marriages between persons solely on the basis of sex or gender to be unconstitutional.

Judge Crabb's language on implementing a temporary stay recognizes federal court decisions across the nation have found for challenges against same-sex marriage bans on the merits, and her decision against bans affirms that courts protect individual rights against incursions by state governments.

Crabb notes the need for a decisive appellate ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court as a guide for lower courts and that the stay is merely procedural until such a ruling is made (or the failure of Van Hollen to appeal her declaration and decision to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit).

Crabb cites a host of precedents in support of her opinion, including Loving v. Virginia (1967), which holds that state bans against marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In response, Van Hollen has made a host of ill-considered, even infantile public statements during litigation, going so low as to threaten to criminally convict county clerks, before backing away from his statement in the face of widespread ridicule. "Who is Van Hollen kidding? Does he really think that county clerks should be prosecuted for doing their jobs after a federal judge threw out the state's ​constitutional ​ban on same-sex marriage? It sounds like the last desperate gasp of a losing argument," reads a blistering editorial from the conservative editorial page of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (June 13, 2014).

So, Van Hollen, ever the partisan and corrupt attorney general, plays the partisan troll again early last weekend, spinning Judge Crabb's procedural and temporary stay of her own ruling as a victory for anti-marriage equity forces.

Reads Van Hollen's statement in part: "I am very pleased that Judge Crabb has followed the lead of courts across the country, including the United States Supreme Court, and fully stayed her ruling. By staying this ruling, she has confirmed that Wisconsin’s law regarding same-sex marriage remains in full force and effect."

Van Hollen's public statements are purely political intended to incite more bigotry and made in support of the current composition of the GOP's collection of hate groups, including the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and other religious right groups.

Van Hollen knows perfectly well state bans and federal court ruling finding against these bans simply need to be litigated in federal appellate court following last year's Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor—holding the federal Defense of Marriage Act is an unconstitutional violation and deprivation of liberty.

Van Hollen's refusal to publicly address the logic of judicial precedents holding states cannot violate the constitutional rights of individuals in the realm of marriage demonstrates anew the Wisconsin attorney general remains little more than a tool of narrow ideological interests against the rule of law and the liberty interest of the individual American citizen.