Scott Walker, Not AG J.B., Keys Same-Sex Marriage Appeal

Yes, GOP Wisconsin Attorney General J.B  Van Hollen's office filed the necessary paperwork with the US Supreme Court to pitch the now-twice discredited constitutionality of Wisconsin's ban on same-sex marriage, but Van Hollen has a client on whose behalf the appeal is being filed - - with our tax funds - - and that client is a certain Scott Walker, GOP Governor, candidate for re-election and 2016 presidential dreamer.

Read through the appeal, cited and linked below. 

And give Walker the credit he's due, and which he wants to solidify his right-wing electoral base, and if you think he's a mere puppet on Van Hollen's strings, note the special status Walker is given on page ii, and elsewhere, in the paperwork...

Petitioners are Scott Walker, in his official capacity as Governor of Wisconsin, J.B. Van Hollen, in his official capacity as Attorney General of Wisconsin, and Oskar Anderson, in his official capacity as State Registrar of Vital Statistics of Wisconsin. 

...and later, separately, and more expansively, on pps. 9-10 of the paperwork, Walker is labeled an active defender of the same-sex marriage ban struck down as unconstitutionally-discriminatory by both a US District Court judge in Madison and a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit of Appeals in Chicago:

...the defendants, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, and State Registrar of Vital Statistics Oskar Anderson, have all consistently defended Wisconsin’s traditional marriage laws. Several county clerks remain defendants, at least one of whom, i.e., Racine County Clerk Wendy Christensen, has defended Wisconsin’s marriage laws. 

Unlike other states where officials have not defended the laws, i.e., Rainey, Nos. 14-153, 14-225, 14-251, or have limited enforcement authority, i.e., Herbert, No. 14-124, this case presents Wisconsin’s chief executive, its top law enforcement official, and its agent responsible for establishing and recording marriage licenses as defendants actively defending the laws. 

Walker is the decider here. If he'd said, "drop it," Van Hollen would have dropped it, saved the taxpayers a lot of money and ended the assault on the rights and peace-of-mind of Wisconsin's same-sex married couples and all fair-minded residents, gay and straight.

Think of Van Hollen as the relief pitcher sent to the mound by the manager to hit a batter. Yes, the pitcher delivered the blow, but at the direction of the manager who runs the show.

Let's not give Walker's deserved spotlight to the errand boy, J.B.Van Hollen.