Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.
Wisconsin Referendum 1 of 2006 was a referendum on an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution that would invalidate same-sex marriages or any substantially similar legal status.[4] The referendum was approved by 59% of voters during the general elections in November 2006.[3] All counties in the state voted for the amendment except Dane County (home of the state capital, Madison, and the University of Wisconsin), which opposed it. The constitutional amendment created by Referendum 1 has been effectively nullified since June 26, 2015, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that state-level bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.[5]
The text of the adopted amendment, which became Article XIII, Section 13 of the state constitution, reads:
Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.[6]
As required by the constitution, the amendment was approved by both houses of the legislature, in two consecutive sessions. The legislative history of the amendment is as follows:
The amendment, which took effect on November 7, 2006, constitutionally banned same-sex marriages, which were never recognized by the state and was statutorily banned since 1979, and civil unions or civil union equivalents, which were never recognized by the state. Wisconsin became the 21st US state to ban same-sex marriage in its constitution and 14th US state to ban civil unions or civil union equivalents in its constitution. This preempted the state judiciary from requiring the state to legally recognize same-sex marriages or civil unions or civil union equivalents and preempted the Wisconsin Legislature from enacting a statute legalizing same-sex marriages or civil unions or civil union equivalents. Domestic partnerships in Wisconsin, legal statewide for state employees only and 1 county and 3 municipalities at the time, were unaffected by the amendment. In 2009, Wisconsin would enact statewide domestic partnerships for everyone, which would later be repealed in 2018.
Legal challenge
In April 2009 the Wisconsin Supreme Court was asked in McConkey v. Van Hollen to rule on whether the 2006 Referendum 1 was constitutional. William McConkey, a political science instructor, claimed that the measure violated the state's constitution because it proposed more than one question in a single ballot proposal, which is impermissible under Wisconsin law.[10][11][12] On June 30, 2010, the Court ruled that the amendment referendum question was permissible and thus the amendment had been properly passed.[13][14] In 2014, the ACLU filed a lawsuit, Wolf v Walker, to challenge the amendment and a federal judge agreed.[15] On June 6, 2014, the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin overturned all bans on same-sex marriage in the state.[16] On October 6, 2014, same sex marriage was legalized in Wisconsin.
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