“From lovebirds to jailbirds?”
Via Broadsheet:
Turns out there’s an old law on the books in Wisconsin that prohibits couples from leaving the state to marry and returning with a union that’s not valid in Wisconsin. Not sure this is what the drafters in 1915 had in mind, but this would apparently include going to California, say, to marry a partner of the same sex and then coming home to the Badger State. The offense: fraud, carrying a penalty of up to nine months of jail time and a fine of up to $10K.
Would anyone actually want to prosecute them? Ya, shore, you betcha. “Someone has to prosecute them,” Julaine Appling of the Wisconsin Anti-Fraud Family Council told CNN. “That’s a defrauding of the government.”
See you in court, say Wisconsin couple Kathy Cox and Kim Whalen, who, having been together for 20 years, plan to visit CA to tie the knot in August. “The pioneers get the arrows, and the settlers get the land,” they told CNN. “So we’ll take a few arrows.”