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Some clerks deny Wisconsin gay couples licenses

By GRETCHEN EHLKE and M.L. JOHNSON
Associated Press

Todd Kinsman (l) and Ravi Manghnani (r) hug after getting married by  a Universal Life Minister outside the City-County Building in Madison, Wis. the day after the ban on same-sex marriage was struck down in Wisconsin. Photo: AP Photo/Wisconsin State Journal/Amber Arnold
Todd Kinsman (l) and Ravi Manghnani (r) hug after getting married by a Universal Life Minister outside the City-County Building in Madison, Wis. the day after the ban on same-sex marriage was struck down in Wisconsin.
Photo: AP Photo/Wisconsin State Journal/Amber Arnold

MILWAUKEE — Gay couples seeking marriage licenses were turned away in some Wisconsin counties on Monday, with clerks waiting for guidance from the courts or state government before accepting applications.

Hundreds of couples married over the weekend in Milwaukee and Madison after a federal judge declared Wisconsin’s ban on gay marriages unconstitutional. County clerks in the state’s two largest cities extended office hours to allow couples to take advantage of what most believe will be a narrow window before the judge’s decision is put on hold.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb has scheduled a 1 p.m. hearing on Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s request for an emergency stay to keep more licenses from being issued. Van Hollen also has appealed Crabb’s decision to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and asked it for a stay.

Clerks in several counties said they would not issue licenses until they have received directions from the Wisconsin Vital Records Office, which keeps marriage records. Jennifer Miller, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health Services, which oversees vital statistics, said it would not issue any guidance until it received directions from Van Hollen.

Brown County Deputy Clerk Justin Schmit said he turned away about 15 couples in Green Bay on Monday morning, and an employee in the Racine County clerk’s office said she had too.

Outagamie County Clerk Lori O’Bright initially said she would also wait but changed her mind following objections from nearly 100 people gathered in her office.

“We gathered in hopes of getting a license. We were told that would not be happening. We did tell them we weren’t leaving until licenses were issued,” said Kathy Flores, 47, of Appleton, who wants a license to marry her partner, Ann Kendzierski.

O’Bright then said she would accept applications but not waive Wisconsin’s five-day waiting period, as clerks in Milwaukee and Madison did.

Crabb’s decision has created some confusion among clerks because she declared the ban unconstitutional but also said she wanted the American Civil Liberties Union to tell her exactly what it wanted her to block in the gay marriage law. The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the ban in January on behalf of eight gay couples.

La Crosse County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer said “phones have been ringing off the hook,” but that she had been told by a county attorney not to issue licenses until after Crabb’s June 16 deadline for the ACLU to respond. St. Croix County deputy clerk Cheryl Harmon said her office in Hudson had been told the same thing by its attorney and also was waiting.

A few counties joined Milwaukee and Dane County — which includes the state capital of Madison — in issuing licenses. Kenosha County Clerk Mary T. Schuch-Krebs said she gave a license to one couple Monday after waiving the five-day waiting period. The couple told her they planned to marry that night.

Schuch-Krebs said she considered Crabb’s ruling enough guidance.

“I don’t see anything that tells me otherwise. What law would I cite to tell them they couldn’t marry?” she said.

Waukesha County Clerk Kathleen Novack said her office west of Milwaukee began accepting applications for licenses about 9:30 a.m. after she talked to a county attorney, saw what other counties were doing and spoke with waiting couples.

“We want to make sure they’re cautioned to a certain degree that they may have some legal issues ahead of them, but we decided that, well, let’s just say that we have a lot of happy people here,” said Novack, who issued about a half-dozen licenses in the first half hour and expected to reach “the 20s or 30s” by the end of the day.

Milwaukee and Dane counties issued 283 marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Friday and Saturday. The numbers might have been higher in Dane County, where 137 licenses were issued, except many residents were already in Milwaukee for the start of PrideFest, an annual gay festival, when Crabb’s decision was announced Friday afternoon. Wisconsin requires residents to apply for marriage licenses in the counties where they live.

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Associated Press

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