In Wisconsin, the first of the United States to prohibit sexual orientation discrimination, a bill to deny legal recognition to same-gender marriages another state may someday perform was the subject of hearings by the state Assembly Committee on Family Law on March 16. A similar measure failed in 1997, and Madison's "Capital Times" newspaper editorialized that the current one "is clearly an election year ploy designed to pander to those who feel they still have a right to discriminate and need a target." Wisconsin marriages are already restricted by law to heterosexual couples.

Representative Mark Gundrum (R-New Berlin), author of AB 781, posed the question as, "Does marriage mean something to our society or not?" Some witnesses cited heterosexual marriage as what God intended. But witness Patrick Flaherty, co-chair of the Domestic Partnership Task Force that recently won a long-sought domestic partners registry in Milwaukee, told the Committee that, "I'm proud to have grown up in Wisconsin because our state is much better than others at avoiding the intrusion of government into polarizing social issues, like the private, committed relationships of its citizens." Flaherty warned that passage could mean lawsuits for governments and businesses extending benefits to unmarried domestic partners.