Russ Feingold's come out in support of same sex marriage, AP reports. "Gay and lesbian people in our country are fighting a mean-spirited movement to harm them and to discriminate against them," Feingold, D-Wis., said in a telephone interview. "I stand with them against that movement, and I'm proud to stand with them."
Russ's remarks were in response to an attempt by the republican-controlled state legislature to amend Wisconsin's constitution to include a ban on same sex marriage. The legislature has been working on it's own version of a 'guns and butter' philosophy that one legislator, Mark Pocan (D), has described as 'god, gays, and guns'. There are a lot of out-state meddlers in on this one.
"Wisconsin is significant because it's not a southern conservative state. It's not a state, I don't think, where the so-called religious right is considered to normally be a strong factor," said Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the pro- amendment Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. "It's important because it's illustrative of the fact that defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman has very broad appeal throughout the American population." (Wisconsin State Journal)
There are those who believe that Wisconsin just might surprise supporters of the amendment. The WSJ again:
"When you look at the national landscape right now, Wisconsin is a place in which we believe that we have a great chance of succeeding," said [Tim O'Brien of the Human Rights Campaign], a former state resident who's working with state groups to defeat the ban. "I think that Wisconsin is just leaps and bounds ahead of any other state that has had this occur."And there's reason to believe this is true. Feingold is a very popular figure in his state. The amendment goes to referendum in november. Let's hope voters don't ratify this hate amendment.
--Wisco
(Keywords: politics, Wisconsin, senate, gay rights, presidential candidate )
