Wisconsin's Corrupt Attorney General's Quest to Block Marriage Equality

Wisconsin has a wide collection of Republican officeholders today making national headlines that would do Mississippi proud.

There's Wisconsin's "dumb Ron Johnson," a U.S. senator who likes to run political interference on behalf of child molesters.

Wisconsin's crooked and extremist governor, Scott Walker who is so afraid of the Wisconsin people, he has failed to hold one listening session, after campaigning his would be the most transparent and open administration in Wisconsin history. "I attended a (Mary) Burke question-and-answer meeting in Waunakee," writes Nila Frye in a letter to the editor in today's Wisconsin State Journal, making the score: Burke: Many; Walker: Zero.

Wisconsin's fake budget numbers guy, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville), who is scaring away Republicans as he explains why Social Security and Medicare are un-American.

Then there is Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a corrupt jurist who went to court in 2008 claiming all of the state bureaucracies' databases' names of Wisconsin residents had to exactly match as a precondition to vote. Seriously.

Van Hollen's charge now, in his mind, is to defend all manner of unconstitutional laws such as the Wisconsin same sex marriage ban and the GOP photo voter obstruction law.

Van Hollen foolishly declared in June there would be "legal repercussions" for county clerks marrying couples after U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb held Wisconsin's ban on same sex marriage unconstitutional in Wolf v. Walker.

Now, instead of allowing marriage equity to proceed, Van Hollen along with Scott Walker announced yesterday they are appealing Judge Crabb's decision, despite widespread and growing sentiment for marriage equality. (Marley, Ferguson; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

In typical Walker and Van Hollen fashion both Republicans do not have the courage of their bigoted convictions, and both officials refrain from explaining why denial of two people of the same sex getting married is constitutional.

Had Walker and Van Hollen not appealed, Judge Crabb's declaration and injunction against enforcement of gay marriage bans would have gone into effect.

Van Hollen can read case law, and the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has fast-tracked a similar case from Indiana where the appellate Court ordered Indiana on July 1 to allow one couple to marry because one of the spouses has terminal cancer.

"It is time for the State of Indiana to leave Niki (Sandler) and Amy (Quasney) in peace and not subject them and their marriage to any more stress and uncertainty as this case proceeds," Lambda Legal staff attorney Paul D. Castillo said in a statement.

Congratulations to Ms. Sandler and Ms. Quasney.

Shame on the bigots and their infantile rants.

Equal protection under the law is the Republican nightmare, and the outgoing J.B. Van Hollen leaves behind a legacy of partisanship, corruption and obstruction of the right to vote and even get married as his legacy.