It's the Hump Day of National Marriage Week

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has declared this to be National Newt Gingrich's Third Marriage Week. Blogger Jim Arndt has been celebrating the festivities. Scott Walker and his pals like (spinster) Julaine Appling revere the sacrament of marriage so ardently they helped pass a State constitutional amendment preventing a substantial cohort of Wisconsinites from enjoying its benefits.

Here are some of the couples that Walker, Appling, and their fellow travelers worked tirelessly to deny equal protection of the law:

Alicia Toby and Saundra Heath, who reside in Newark, have lived together for seventeen years and have children and grandchildren. Alicia is an ordained minister in a church ...

Mark Lewis and Dennis Winslow reside in Union City and have been together for fourteen years. They both are pastors in the Episcopal Church.

Diane Marini and Marilyn Maneely were committed partners for fourteen years until Marilyn's death in 2005. The couple lived in Haddonfield, where Diane helped raise, as though they were her own, Marilyn’s five children from an earlier marriage.

Karen and Marcye Nicholson-McFadden have been committed partners for seventeen years. ... [T]hey are raising two young children conceived through artificial insemination, Karen having given birth to their daughter and Marcye to their son.

Suyin and Sarah Lael have resided together in Franklin Park for most of the sixteen years of their familial partnership. ... They live with their nine-year-old adopted daughter and two other children who they are in the process of adopting.

Cindy Meneghin and Maureen Kilian first met in high school and have been in a committed relationship for thirty-two years. They have lived together for twenty-three years in Butler where they are raising a fourteen-year-old son and a twelve-year-old daughter. Through artificial insemination, Cindy conceived their son and Maureen their daughter.

Recently, Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch in an interview with a fundamentalist Christian radio station likened gay couples to dogs.

Every argument that so-called "traditional marriage" proponents have presented to courts throughout the country has been debunked, leaving little else to their positions except homophobia and bigotry.

In America, religious adherents, who can switch or even reverse their sectarian affiliation at the drop of a hat, enjoy more heightened legal protections for their various beliefs than do those whose sexual orientation differs from the majority. That situation shouldn't stand.