SB 907

Summary

This bill recognizes same-sex marriage by making references in the statutes

to spouses gender-neutral, with the intent of harmonizing the Wisconsin Statutes

with the holding of the U.S. Supreme Court in

Obergefell v. Hodges

, 135 S. Ct. 2584,

192 L. Ed. 2d 609 (2015), which recognizes that same-sex couples have a

fundamental constitutional right to marriage. The bill also recognizes legal

parentage for same-sex couples under certain circumstances and adopts

gender-neutral parentage terminology.

Same-sex marriage

The bill provides that marriage may be contracted between persons of the same

sex and confers the same rights and responsibilities on married persons of the same

sex that married persons of different sexes have under current law. The bill defines

“spouse" as a person who is legally married to another person of the same sex or a

different sex and replaces every reference to “husband" or “wife" in current law with

“spouse." The bill makes applicable to married persons of the same sex all provisions

under current law that apply to married persons of different sexes. These provisions

relate to such diverse areas of the law as income tax, marital property, inheritance

rights, divorce, child and spousal support, insurance coverage, family and spousal

recreational licenses, consent to conduct an autopsy, domestic abuse, and eligibility

for various types of benefits, such as retirement or death benefits and medical

assistance.

Parentage

In addition to making statutory references to spouses gender-neutral, the bill

specifies ways in which couples of the same sex may be the legal parents of a child,

recognizes that a transgender person may become pregnant and give birth to a child,

and makes current references in the statutes to “mother" and “father," and related

terms, gender-neutral.

Under current law, all of the following may adopt a child: a husband and wife

jointly, a husband or wife whose spouse is the parent of the child, and an unmarried

adult. Because the bill makes references in the statutes to spouses gender-neutral,

same-sex spouses jointly may adopt a child and become the legal parents of the child,

and a same-sex spouse of a person who is the parent of a minor child may adopt the

child and become the legal parent of his or her spouse's child.

Under current law, if a woman is artificially inseminated under the supervision

of a physician with semen donated by a man who is not her husband and the husband

consents in writing to the artificial insemination of his wife, the husband is the

natural father of any child conceived. Under the bill, one spouse may also consent

to the artificial insemination of his or her spouse and is the natural parent of the child