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Written by Louis Weisberg, Staff writer
Oct 10, 2011
Anti-gay activists have created a new group that aims to overturn Appleton’s domestic partner benefits policy.
The Appleton Common Council voted Sept. 7 to extend employment benefits to the registered same-sex domestic partners of city workers. But former Appleton Ald. Jo Egelhoff, a staunch anti-equality activist, and Perry Bovee, a right-wing Christian leader with a record of multiple arrests, are fighting the decision. They’ve formed a group called “Appleton Taxpayers United," which has the single-issue mission of eliminating the partnership benefits, perhaps via referendum in next April’s general election.
Egelhoff and Bovee claim the city cannot afford the estimated $100,000 cost of providing city employees in registered same-sex relationships with the same employment benefits that married employees receive. But Mayor Tim Hanna and the majority of city leaders supported the benefits, arguing that they make the city a more competitive recruiter.
The city spends about $9 million annually on healthcare, which represents about 6 percent of Appleton’s $147-million budget. The cost of same-sex domestic partner benefits will amount to an estimated .068 percent of the city’s annual budget.
“Given the portion of the city budget that we’re talking about here, it is clear that this is not about saving money,” said Fair Wisconsin executive director Katie Belanger. “It is about targeting gay and lesbian employees who deserve fair and equal treatment.”
Neither Egelhoff nor Bovee has targeted other, much larger expenditures in the budget. But both have a history of opposing LGBT rights.
Bovee wrote an open letter to the Appleton Post Crescent accusing Mayor Hanna of conspiring with Ald. Curt Konetzke “to shove their homosexual agenda” down the throats of Appleton taxpayers.
Bovee, a divorced man who says he stands for “family values,” has a history of personal problems. He was convicted of battery once and disorderly conduct three times. In addition, he’s been found guilty twice of driving while intoxicated and was served with a restraining order for harassing a woman.
Egelhoff, who operates a fringe-right blog called FoxPolitics.net, is named as one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that claims the state’s domestic partner registry law is unconstitutional. She’s a close associate of Julaine Appling, the executive director of Wisconsin Family Action – the anti-gay group behind both the lawsuit and the state’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions.
Although Appling has made fighting same-sex marriage the focus of her activism, she lives with longtime companion Diane Westphal in a home they own together in Watertown. Neither of the middle-aged women has ever married.
WiG has sent open record requests to the six Appleton alders who opposed the domestic partner benefits asking for copies of their e-mail correspondence with Egelhoff and Bovee.
