Same Sex Marriage opponents stumped that "the need for a mother and father," "biological reality," "regulate procreation through the state," didn't go over well.

Same sex marriage got its day in court and proponents essentially bulldozed opponents under with logic and reason. In many ways it highlights the sharp conservative activist Wisconsin Supreme Courts approach to almost everything that comes before it. Why weren't the questions raised in the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals asked or even considered important to the debate here in Wisconsin? A shocking and embarrassing contrast really between our "justices" and their "judges."

Here's what those involved in the legal challenge had to say:



WKOW's Greg Neumann highlighted the right wing scare tactics that believe it or not, conservative voters fall for hook-line-and-sinker:

Tribune: Judge Richard Posner waited just seconds before interrupting the solicitor general from Indiana, beginning a line of questioning about why children of same-sex couples should not be allowed to have legally married parents, as do children of heterosexual couples. To press his point, Posner told a fictitious story of a 6-year-old forced to go to school and see that he is different from his classmates. “Wouldn’t the children want their parents to be married,” Posner asked, also noting the thousands of children in foster care in Indiana who need to be adopted.  “What do you think is psychologically better for the child?” 

Mike Dean, attorney for Wisconsin Family Action, said the court was not interested in hearing the group's rationale that a child should grow up with both a mother and a father. “This goes back to the fundamental issue. Do we deny biological reality in order to legally affirm felt autonomy? Does a law exist to make people feel better?” Dean said. “That is their choice, but to go and say that therefore society as a whole must agree that relationship is the same as a heterosexual marriage, that is a step that cannot be taken.”

(Posner called) parts of the states' arguments "absurd" and "ridiculous." "These people and their adopted children are harmed by your law," Judge Richard Posner said.

During oral arguments, Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher contended there is a fundamental difference between same-sex and heterosexual couples that allows the government to treat them differently. "Opposite-sex couples make babies," he said. "Same-sex couples do not." But Posner expressed skepticism of the idea that the states were trying to promote procreation. "You allow all these sterile couples to get married," he said. "Why are you doing that if you're so interested in procreation?"

jsonline: Hamilton struck a similar tone ... The Indiana solicitor general defended the ban by linking marriage, as an institution, to procreation and the need for that to be regulated by the state. “Men and women create babies and there has to be a social mechanism to deal with that,”  Thomas M. Fisher said under heavy questioning.  Timothy C. Samuelson, the assistant attorney general from Wisconsin, repeatedly used the word “tradition”  to defend the ban in that state on gay marriage, leading exasperated judges to ask what he meant by that. Judge David F. Hamilton pressed Samuelson, expressing doubt that Wisconsin defined marriage as between opposite-sex people to encourage them to stay together if they have children: "I presume you're familiar with how that's been working out over the last twenty-five to thirty years," Hamilton said to Samuelson, the assistant attorney general. He went on to cite statistics bout out-of-wedlock births, saying Wisconsin's attempts to keep families together seem "pretty unsuccessful."

Posner, noted adopted children would benefit if their parents could claim the tax breaks and other perks of being married. "These children would be better off if their parents could marry, no? It's obvious," Posner said.

And despite the federal tax implications of marriage, our upside down AG wants local control:

Wisconsin Attorney General Van Hollen issued a statement, arguing states should be the ones to decide policies on marriage, divorce and child custody. "I am increasingly concerned about the federal government's reach into, if not domination of, powers guaranteed to the states and the people in the 10th Amendment," his statement said.

Saving the worst for last: Suggesting that some day the state will require mothers with children to marry a man, our own crazy zealot Julaine Appling continued to prove she's no deep thinker: 

After the arguments, Julaine Appling of Wisconsin Family Action noted the issue of same-sex marriage was likely to be ultimately determined by the U.S. Supreme Court. Appling said men and women parent differently and children need both a father and mother. "What you're seeing is fatherlessness. What has fatherless done in Milwaukee?" she asked, saying single-parent families had contributed to crime and a lack of direction among young people.