Q Toon: Surely You Joust

This week's cartoon may have been inspired by Game of Thrones, but I didn't want to cast Peter Dinklage in the starring role. Instead, I cast Wisconsin Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen as the lawyer, even though I'm not currently running in any publications in my home state.

I happened to watch Mike Gousha's interview with Van Hollen in which Van Hollen said that he was pushing ahead with his defense of Wisconsin's Mixed Marriage Supremacy amendment. (Gousha's program comes on about the time I am usually almost done inking my cartoon on Sunday night.) In the interview, Van Hollen admitted that Wisconsin's amendment was virtually certain to be found unconstitutional, just like similar provisions in Oklahoma, Oregon and Pennsylvania days before.

Gousha: "In a lot of courts around the country, these laws banning same-sex marriage are being struck down. Why do you feel Wisconsin will be different?"
Van Hollen: "Well, I don't necessarily feel it will be different. But it's still my obligation. ... Those laws have lost across the country. I certainly won't be at all surprised if we lose in our court here as well."

In the end, Van Hollen hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court will come to the rescue of states who want to deny marriage to same-sex couples.

Meanwhile, Van Hollen has refused to defend Wisconsin's domestic partner registry, passed in the 2009 budget and signed by then-Governor Jim Doyle. Van Hollen believes that the domestic partner registry is unconstitutional. The circuit court ruling that the registry is legal was upheld unanimously in District 4 Court of Appeals in December, 2012.