DPW/Joe - Leadership On Equal Rights

Editorial: Wineke's leadership

A Cap Times editorial, June 15, 2006
OK, so Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Joe Wineke is not a metrosexual.

The former state senator representing rural Dane and Green counties maintains his reputation as a beer-and-brats kind of guy who has little time for fashion statements or the latest trend. Indeed, he would probably be a competitive candidate for a "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" makeover.

But Wineke has met the highest standard of sophistication better than any of those high-flying Democratic Party leaders in San Francisco, Miami or New York.
U
nder Wineke's leadership, Wisconsin Democrats are the only state party organization in the country that has taken an official stance against an anti-same-sex marriage amendment.

Wineke backed that stance up at the state Democratic Convention in La Crosse over the weekend, when the chairman personally introduced Mike Tate, the manager of the Fair Wisconsin campaign. Fair Wisconsin is spearheading the effort to defeat the attempt by legislators to amend the state constitution to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples.

Tate predicts that when Wisconsin votes on the issue this fall, it will become the first state in the country to reject such an amendment.
The uncompromising position taken by Wineke and the Democratic Party which has not lost a presidential or U.S. Senate election in two decades and which now controls every significant statewide partisan office will certainly help.

Wineke's leadership on this issue is helping to put the amendment vote in the proper perspective. What is at stake here is not an issue of sex or sexuality; what is at issue is a basic question of fairness. And if there are still any doubters, Joe Wineke will be more than willing to explain it to them over a brat and a cool one.

Published: June 15, 2006