Features & Human Interest Archive

December 31, 2011

DARBOY — A year after enduring a stem cell transplant that could ultimately save his life, Charlie Knuth, 5, is focused on one thing — being a little boy.

“He plays like a regular kid,” said his mother, Trisha Knuth. “Charlie is happy, the family is happy and he’s not in pain. That’s really what matters right now.”

Charlie has the rare skin disease epidermolysis bullosa, commonly known as EB.

Born without the protein that binds skin together, Charlie’s body once blistered badly inside and out, a painful condition that typically leads to a lethal form of skin cancer. But that was before the Dec. 30, 2010, bone marrow transplant, which helped Charlie’s body produce the missing protein and strengthened his skin.

“He’s one of the kids that made tremendous progress,” said Dr. Jakub Tolar, Charlie’s physician at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis. “(Charlie) responded very well and he seems to be on the right track. His organs are functioning fine, and now he’s going to — I would hope — continue to heal.”

Abandoned at birth, Charlie came home with the Knuths from a hospital in Milwaukee when he was 2 weeks old. His adoption was finalized a year later.

Charlie’s remarkable progress has prompted the Knuths to adopt another child who suffers from the same severe form of EB that has shaped Charlie’s life. Trisha Knuth will travel to Washington next week to meet 6-year-old Seth.

“(Seth) is in a group home and he has never had a family,” Trisha Knuth said. “He’s in pretty bad shape.”

She said the outpouring of community support her family received during Charlie’s journey has prepared the family as they enter a new chapter with Seth.

“It’s a lot different this time,” she said. “Before all this happened, we were kind of alone. Nobody knew what was wrong with (Charlie); nobody knew how to help. And now because of all of the publicity and community support, I really feel like we have such a large support system that it’ll be much easier.”

The lesions that once blanketed Charlie’s small frame have largely receded. Just a few patches of fragile skin remain, and those are carefully wrapped with bandages that once entombed most of Charlie’s body.

“We try to leave as much skin as we can exposed,” Trisha Knuth explained. “It seems like the more we can leave exposed, the tougher it gets.”

Tolar said that’s precisely what Charlie’s skin needs to continue healing.

“The idea is to not cover the spots that are open wounds because the usual wear and tear of normal daily life is actually good for it,” Tolar said. “It informs the cells in the bone marrow to travel to the skin and make more of the collagen type 7 (protein) that he needs. There are several cycles of healing that have to occur to get the best result.”

The dramatic changes in Charlie’s life aren’t merely physical. Both his mother and Tolar expressed amazement at the way his mental and emotional well-being evolved as well.

“I can’t even remember the last time he cried in the bath (from the pain),” Trisha Knuth said. “From one extreme to this — it’s profound, it’s amazing.”

And the change in Charlie’s quality of life has rippled to the rest of his family, including his brothers, Alex and Hunter, both 16, and sister, Chloe, 8.

“Let’s put it this way — a happy mom is a happy family,” Trisha Knuth said, chuckling. “Before (the transplant) all of his pain and all of his anxiety was taken out on me because I was his main caregiver, so things were very stressful around the house. Charlie would deal with pain by acting out with hitting and screaming and calling names. He does not do that anymore, so everybody’s just very happy.

“My mom and dad have finally been able to baby-sit for Charlie, and that’s never happened. So me and (Charlie’s father) Kevin were able to go do something on our anniversary for the first time since Charlie was born. That’s a big deal.”

Tolar said it’s too early to tell whether the transplant reduced Charlie’s risk for developing skin cancer, but he said he’s optimistic.

“The model is that (EB patients) get skin cancer because of the enormous irritation of the skin,” he said. “So if you remove the irritation, you will remove the risk of cancer. But it’s going to take a decade or more to actually know if that’s the case.”

Tolar will continue to monitor Charlie’s progress and meet with him at least once a year until he turns 18.

For now, Tolar said, Charlie needs to focus on staying active and growing up as any little boy would.

“He’s as bright as anybody else and probably mature beyond his years because of what he went through and he should be given all the opportunity in life as anybody else,” Tolar said. “That was the whole goal of the transplant — to give him that.”

— Michael Louis Vinson: 920-993-1000, ext. 368, or mvinson@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @MichaelVinson

About EB

Epidermolysis bullosa is a genetic disease that makes the skin fragile, causing it to blister inside and outside the body.

» EB affects one out of every 50,000 children born in the U.S.

» EB is not contagious.

» The most aggressive forms of EB lead to disfigurement, disability and early death. Milder forms are not lethal.

» There is no cure. EB is treated through wound care and bandaging.

» EB can be diagnosed through prenatal testing.

» You can read more about Charlie’s journey with EB on the website for Pioneering Unique Cures for Kids, a foundation that funds EB Research. http://bit.ly/PUCK-Foundation

Source: The Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa Research Association of America, www.debra.org; Pioneering Unique Cures for Kids

November 13, 2011

A 2007 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and 2008 recipient of the MacArthur Foundation’s half-million-dollar so-called “genius grant,” Alex Ross has become something of a popular evangelist for classical music.

A music critic for the New Yorker magazine since 1996, Ross has written two books on the subject: “The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century” in 2007 and “Listen to This” last year.

Ross spoke to students at Lawrence University in Appleton recently about common threads that unite musical genres.

“Classical music is just not as far apart from folk music and popular music as people may think,” Ross told The Post-Crescent before his speech during a joint interview with The Lawrentian student newspaper. “It really does all flow together.”

Here are excerpts from the interview.

How did you find your way to a career in arts criticism?

Ross: I hadn’t had a grand plan from childhood to become a music critic. I don’t know how many people actually do. I had been very immersed in music, playing the piano and oboe and also trying to compose. That was my great ambition as a kid, and that didn’t really amount to anything. At the same time I was deeply immersed in writing and loved writing from a really early age.

Those two tracks never really intersected until the last couple years in college (at Harvard University). I didn’t do journalism in newspaper or campus publications, but I did do the radio station. I had a couple different classical music shows, and I wrote little essays to go along with some CD reviews, which we published in our program guide. So that was the first kind of music writing I did.

After college I was looking at going to graduate school to pursue an academic career when I started getting freelance assignments. In 1992, the New York Times approached me about taking on a low-level, fifth-string freelance arrangement. Even then I was still thinking about graduate school, but when I got my first assignment at the New Yorker that was such a great experience that I thought, “Well, I’ll stick with this.”

What did you find so fantastic about your initial experience writing for the New Yorker?

Ross: It was so satisfying to have the time and the latitude to delve into a subject. I wrote one piece for the New Yorker about every year for three years, and then they offered me a full-time job. I would have a lot of time to ponder these things and to work on my piece.

Then when the editorial process started, it was just so luxurious. The editors I was working with were taking such a close look, but they weren’t tearing my prose apart and rewriting it. It was just a great conversation we would have about what I was trying to do.

I was torn between journalism and the idea of an academic career and this felt like a great place in the middle, where I did have time and the resources to go into something more deeply but I was still writing for a general interest publication.

It was a wonderful opportunity and also a challenge to write for a very diverse public, some of whom would know a lot about classical music and others would know next to nothing. The idea is they would be intellectually curious and willing to take on a subject that they might not be familiar with. I love that challenge, and I think it leads to good writing when you assume your reader is intelligent but not necessarily that he or she knows much about the particular topic you’re taking on.

What drew you to classical music at a young age?

Ross: The sound of it and the feeling of it were so exciting to me. I had no preconceptions about it, I had no stereotypes. I didn’t think it was the music of the past or rich people’s music or elite music. It was just there. My parents had a lot of classical records. They weren’t musicians, but they loved this music and I fastened on to it and got so obsessed by it so early that it wasn’t until much later that I was able to step back and see a wider musical landscape.

I really am a big believer in pushing back against some of these stereotypes around classical music. It discourages me when I see scenes in movies or even TV commercials where classical concerts always get depicted as a bunch of stuffy people in evening wear. When you go to a regular concert, people don’t dress like that. People dress up a little bit, in the same way they do when they go to the theater, but it’s really not that kind of an environment.

Some of those stereotypes are self-generated to a certain extent. I think classical music has had a problem with projecting a certain image and being a too reserved and too attached to some old rituals of behavior in the concert hall. That needs to be addressed, and there are some people who are really taking that on. They’re thinking about how we can do this differently. What is a different contemporary model that we could have for classical concerts?

If someone is curious about classical music, but intimated to delve deeper than Beethoven or Handel, what advice do you have for them?

Ross: People tend to be intimated by the classical concert, and they worry, “How do I dress? How do I behave? Am I going to clap in the wrong place?” This is just not something you should worry about. It just doesn’t matter how you dress, and you’ll instantly understand this whole supposed rule about when to applaud or when not to applaud by watching people around you. It’s not that complicated.

People also tend to be a little confused by the span of a big movement of a symphony. What am I actually supposed to be listening to? So many people have grown up with three-, four-, five-minute songs. Again, it’s pretty simple. There’s not a lot of intricate science that you need to know.

The best thing is just to go back and listen again to get to know a particular piece. Beethoven’s Third Symphony was something I listened to so many times when I was growing up. Once you’ve listened to it the third, fourth, sixth time, you really start to understand how it works.

— Michael Louis Vinson: 920-993-1000, ext. 368, or mvinson@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @MichaelVinson

November 9, 2011

APPLETON — An outspoken gay rights advocate in her professional work and personal life, Appleton Diversity Coordinator Kathy Flores has become a focal point in city budget deliberations.

For the second consecutive year, members of the Appleton Common Council are trying to eliminate or sideline her position amid concern her work spills beyond the city’s borders, most prominently on issues related to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

The council is expected to adopt a 2012 budget tonight and vote on a plan that could cut the position in April.

Flores also faces scrutiny from Appleton Taxpayers United, which formed in opposition to the council’s Sept. 7 decision to include registered same-sex domestic partners of nonunion employees on the city’s health and dental plan.

The group has questioned Flores’ support for the policy and her ties to Fair Wisconsin, a gay rights advocacy group that urged the council to adopt the benefits plan.

Flores said Monday she appreciates the criticism, calling it “an opportunity for discussion.”

“I think it’s a really good thing when people disagree with me,” Flores said. “Just because you disagree with me doesn’t mean you’re wrong (and it) doesn’t mean I’m wrong. That’s part of diversity. I don’t think the wisdom of the group works well when everybody thinks alike.”

Flores, 44, who has held the diversity post since 2009, said the pushback is a natural outgrowth of demographic and generational shifts that have gradually reshaped the Fox Valley in the past decade.

“Any time a community grows and stretches like this, you’re going to have conflicting views on where the community’s going,” Flores said.

Reaching out

Some aldermen have targeted Flores’ work outside Appleton, arguing that city taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for activities in neighboring communities.

“This really is a benefit of our surrounding community and not just Appleton,” Ald. Ed Baranowski said Tuesday. “With that being the case, it’s more of a regionalism perspective that we need to be looking at (for) positions like this that are key.”

Reviving the contours of an idea Ald. Jim Clemons proposed last fall, Baranowski, Clemons and Ald. Chris Croatt have proposed eliminating the position next spring if the city cannot secure enough grant money from outside organizations to fund it for the remainder of 2012.

“My primary goal for that amendment would be to make that a regionally funded position,” Croatt said Tuesday. “It’s my intention to keep it at city hall within the community development department. Appleton has a great need for that (position), but also the larger community has a need for it … It’s not the intention to diminish (the position). Hopefully it would grow.”

Baranowski said he hopes the budget proposal can help focus the position’s priorities.

“It’s not about Ms. Flores — it’s about the best person to fit the needs of that position,” Baranowski said. “Certainly, if it remains in the city of Appleton, there’s a defined scope of what that is. But I think there’s an opportunity here to even better define the scope of that position, if we were able to fund it regionally.”

Karen Harkness, the city’s community development director and Flores’ supervisor, defended Flores’ work outside Appleton on the city’s dime.

“Issues that come before us because of diversity and inclusion do not recognize geographic boundaries,” Harkness said. “Just because an incident or project or initiative happens in a neighboring community, that doesn’t mean that it’s not going to have some sort of effect on Appleton.”

For example, a cluster of suicides among gay teens in Outagamie County in 2009 and 2010 spurred some of Flores’ efforts in other communities, including Shiocton, where Cody Barker, 17, took his life after he was bullied at school for being gay.

“This is an issue that we could not be silent on,” Flores explained. “This is a very high-profile position. I’m a very high-profile person. I know that. I could not be silent on this issue. We as an organization couldn’t be silent on this issue. But because it is a controversial issue, that is sometimes where the lightning rod will go. But we stand by the work that this office is doing and I wouldn’t change any of it.”

Personal advocacy

Flores’ work on issues related to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has raised eyebrows most often, in no small part because Flores is one of the most prominent openly gay officials in the Fox Valley.

She and her partner are intervening defendants along with Fair Wisconsin in a lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s domestic partner registry, which is at the heart of the controversy over Appleton’s same-sex domestic partner benefits policy.

The city’s rule requires same-sex domestic partners to register their relationship with the state to obtain health and dental coverage.

Baranowski and Appleton Taxpayers United have proposed pausing the city’s policy until after the state Supreme Court has issued a ruling in the case.

A Dane County judge upheld the registry’s constitutionality in June, arguing that the registry does not conflict with a 2006 constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage and civil unions.

Former Ald. Jo Egelhoff, a leader of Appleton Taxpayers United, is a plaintiff in that lawsuit, along with Wisconsin Family Action, a socially conservative group.

Flores said she doesn’t think the line between her professional work and her personal causes has become blurred.

A leader with the group Toward Community: Unity in Diversity, who helped start Harmony Cafe in downtown Appleton and worked on community outreach at Harbor House for eight years, Flores said she has always been upfront about who she is and what she values.

“When I applied for (this) position, I was very well known already,” Flores said. “Everybody knew the work that I did. Nobody was blind about who they hired.”

Flores also rejected the notion that she spends a disproportionate amount of work time on issues related to sexual orientation.

“I spend the appropriate amount of time,” Flores said. “The (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community and (related) issues are a piece of the pie. I work on issues within different communities … and LGBT issues are a piece of that.”

— Michael Louis Vinson: 920-993-1000, ext. 368, or mvinson@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @MichaelVinson

October 19, 2011

APPLETON — It begins with a push.

Apply the slightest pressure, and the organ’s 61 keys will ignite a full-force, symphonic explosion of air and sound.

“It’s not like music out of a speaker,” said Greg Pettigrew, a member of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Appleton. “Music out of a speaker you hear. Music out of an organ you feel.”

Pettigrew and the church’s organ committee have spent the last nine years trying to make the explosive power of the sanctuary’s 1,200-pipe organ even more dynamic.

The group has raised more than $300,000 to refurbish and expand the decades-old organ, affectionately known as “Bertha,” which has grown more difficult to maintain with time.

“We’re taking all of the old pipes out of the organ and we’re going to take them to Vermont to be cleaned and rebuilt and restored,” said Stephen Russell of Cambridgeport, Vt., who the church commissioned to complete the $500,000 project.

“Some of the pipes date back to 1901, and those are the one we’re primarily recycling (back into the refurbished organ). The old ones are the nice ones. After 60 years or so, the mechanism under the old organ was starting to have problems, and it was difficult to fix,” Russell said.

A volunteer crew of about 20 people dislodged the structure from the church’s balcony this week and loaded each piece into plywood boxes marked “trumpet” and “oboe” — a testament to the organ’s ability to mimic dozens of instruments.

“Churches can’t afford symphony orchestras,” Russell said. “(An organ) is one of the few instruments that can create very soothing, gentle music, or it can provide inspiring or even terrifying music. You can really speak to all the human emotions in the hands of a talented musician.”

Of those 1,200 pipes, about half will return to Zion Evangelical Lutheran next summer and 2,500 new pipes will accompany them on the return trip, nearly tripling the organ in size.

“It’s about creative special engineering,” Russell said with a chuckle. “There was a lot of wasted space the way the old organ was installed. … Right now they’re jammed in a little closet and have to scream their heads off in order to get out and be heard.”

As Russell puts his 42 years of pipe-building experience to work on the new and improved organ over the next year, the Appleton congregation will have to find a substitute for the music that has sustained services for more than a century.

“It really has led the people in song,” said Gwen Schwandt, co-chair of the organ committee. “It’s their prayers set to music.”

Until the organ returns, a piano will serve as the main source of musical accompaniment during worship.

“I think it will whet the appetite a little bit more of people sitting in the pews, because now it’s real,” Schwandt said. “It’s gone.”

Pettigrew predicts the church will have “a lot of opportunity to find different types of music, to have instrumentalists come in. We’ll have a great bank of people to work with even when the organ comes back.”

“Music is an expression of the human spirit,” Russell said. “It’s part of the whole fabric of worship. You can’t separate the two.”

How an organ works

An organ is essentially a giant set of whistles. An organ has several sets of pipes, and each set is known as a “rank.” Each rank sits on a large box that’s full of pressurized air. A so-called “stop,” or slider, on the organ console manipulates when a rank of pipes has access to the pressurized air. When the organ keys are pressed, a mechanism causes the air to rise, making a distinct tone and sound.

Source: Stephen Russell of Russell and Co. Pipe Organ Builders, Cambridgeport, Vt.

Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church

The congregation was first established in 1883, and the current structure at 912 N. Oneida St. in Appleton was dedicated in 1903. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Source: National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior

October 3, 2011

APPLETON — With Green Bay poised to reject a plan that extends health insurance benefits to same-sex domestic partners of city employees, Appleton residents and advocacy groups have praised and derided a similar policy adopted here last month.

Fair Wisconsin, the state’s leading gay rights advocacy group, applauded the new policy. Appleton’s diversity coordinator, Kathy Flores, said she has received only “very supportive feedback and comments.”

But a coalition of Appleton residents alarmed by what they see as an ill-timed, costly expansion of an already generous benefits plan for city employees vows to reverse the Common Council’s Sept. 7 decision.

Led by Perry Bovee, who penned a Sept. 24 letter to The Post-Crescent against the policy, and former Appleton Ald. Jo Egelhoff, the group — Appleton Taxpayers United — is concerned about the estimated $100,000 cost to the city next year, when Appleton faces deep cuts in state aid. The city’s preliminary 2012 budget plans will be unveiled this month.

“We have received an overwhelming citizen response opposing the recent action of Mayor (Tim) Hanna and the Common Council granting benefits to same-sex and unmarried partners of city employees,” Bovee and Egelhoff wrote in a statement to The P-C. “We are very concerned about the significant impact of this action on Appleton taxpayers … We are actively pursuing our options to repeal this irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars.”

One option involves a petition drive to force a referendum on the issue for the general election next April — a tall task that requires collecting nearly 4,000 signatures in 60 days.

Hanna defended the policy, which he said is needed to recruit and retain top talent in Appleton, and he chided opponents for linking the issue to budgetary constraints.

“This whole issue has somehow gotten wrapped up as a money issue,” Hanna said. “That is a misperception … To paint this whole issue as this expensive benefit that we’re extending is not really the right way to look at it.”

Domestic partnerships

In response to a new state law that eliminates collective bargaining powers for most public employees, Hanna worked with city employees and members of the council’s Human Resource Committee to overhaul Appleton’s benefits package for non-union employees.

Police, fire and transit workers are still able to bargain for separate benefits packages.

Under the city’s new non-union benefits policy, gay and lesbian employees who register for domestic partner status with the state can include their partners on the city’s health plan.

To enroll in the state’s domestic partner registry, couples must sign a declaration that they are both at least 18 years old; are not married to or in a domestic partnership with anyone else; share a common residence; are not nearer of kin to each other than second cousins; and are members of the same sex.

In Outagamie County, 88 couples have formed domestic partnerships since the status took effect in 2009. In Winnebago County, that figure stands at 76 couples. As of October 2010, 17 couples had registered for the status in Calumet County, where current figures were not available late last week.

The cost

Sandy Neisen, Appleton’s human resources director, relied on a 2009 report by the state Legislative Fiscal Bureau to calculate the estimated cost for adding same-sex domestic partners to Appleton’s health and dental plans.

In that report, state officials estimated Wisconsin’s health insurance costs would grow between 1.25 percent and 1.75 percent if both same-sex and opposite-sex domestic partners were added to the state health plan.

A separate provision in state law allows opposite-sex and same-sex couples to form a different type of domestic partnership, one that is primarily used to allocate pension benefits.

Appleton officials chose to include registered same-sex domestic partners in the city’s health and dental plans, but not the broader domestic partnership group that includes opposite-sex domestic partners. Hanna and other city leaders argued that opposite-sex couples already have access to those benefits through legal marriage.

With that in mind, Neisen estimated the rise in Appleton’s health care costs would be lower than the state estimate — closer to 1 percent.

The city typically spends about $9 million on health care each year, which is roughly 6 percent of the total $147 million budget.

Neisen calculated health care costs would rise about $90,000 next year. Dental costs would go up about $7,500.

“I (still) think that’s high for a number of reasons,” Neisen said. “In order to be eligible, (same-sex couples) have to go and register, and not all domestic partners are willing or want to or are able to go and register. Appleton is also more conservative than Madison or Milwaukee, where some of these (state estimates) came out of.”

Additionally, Neisen noted, many same-sex domestic partners could face a higher tax burden by accepting the benefits.

Unlike marriages, domestic partnerships are not recognized by the federal government. To comply with federal tax laws, gay and lesbian employees are sometimes required to treat the value of health coverage for their domestic partners as taxable income.

“That’s a negative,” Neisen explained. “There’s a cost to them taking the coverage.”

Just an estimate

Neisen and Hanna also said the $100,000 estimate may be completely off the mark because Appleton is self-insured, which means the city incurs health care costs only when employees or their families need medical care.

The city does not buy insurance coverage from a third party or pay premiums. Instead, Appleton estimates its risks and sets aside a pool of money accordingly.

“How much it actually costs the city depends upon how often that person goes to the doctor,” Hanna said. “Our risk exposure changes every time we exchange a single employee with a married employee, or every time one of our employees has a child. That adds somebody to our pool of insured people.”

Neisen said it was virtually impossible to know precisely how much domestic partners would cost the city.

“When someone gets married, we (set aside) more for them to have a family plan than a single plan,” Neisen said. “But if that couple never goes to the doctor, it doesn’t cost us anything. (But) the single person who has cancer could cost us a boat load.”

Recruitment, retention

Hanna is adamant that offering the health coverage to same-sex domestic partners would help the city entice top talent.

“This is really about being able to attract the broadest pool possible,” Hanna said. “I know people don’t buy that argument, but there is a reality to that … The bottom line, these are real people you’re talking about and they contribute a lot to this organization and a lot to our community.”

Appleton Taxpayers United leaders Bovee and Egelhoff dismissed that argument.

“The city of Appleton has many high-quality employees,” they wrote in an email exchange. “The current benefit package will continue to attract high-quality employees.”

Reversing the policy

In addition to possibly launching a petition drive, Appleton Taxpayers United intends to file public records requests of city officials to determine how and when the policy changes were developed internally.

“Our objective is to make sure (Hanna and the council) perform their duties in a responsible and transparent way,” Bovee and Egelhoff wrote. “Unfortunately, there appears to have been a rush to pass this policy without giving us the chance to voice our opposition.”

Appleton Taxpayers United will file requests of Hanna, diversity coordinator Flores and Ald. Curt Konetzke, chairman of the council’s human resources committee, who has announced plans to run for mayor next year.

Ald. Ed Baranowski — who voted against the policy with aldermen Jim Clemons, Christopher Croatt, Greg Dannecker, Jeffrey Jirschele and Michael Smith — filed a public records request of Flores the week the council adopted the policy.

Baranowski, who declined to comment to The P-C for this story, asked to see a list of recipients to a Sept. 8 email Flores sent titled, “Appleton Celebrates Same-Sex Domestic Partner Benefits.”

The P-C was included on that recipient list.

Flores said she does not feel pressured by the extra scrutiny.

“I get asked questions every day about the work we are doing at the city,” Flores said. “I support any policies brought forward by departments or city employees to make our workplace and city more inclusive for all individuals … I most certainly support it because it equals the playing field.”

Domestic Partnerships

State law offers two types of domestic partnerships: Chapter 40 and Chapter 770. Appleton’s plan falls under Chapter 770.

» Chapter 40: Couples may register for domestic partnerships if: Each person is at least 18 years old; neither person is married to or in a domestic partnership with someone else; the two people share a common residence; the two people are not nearer of kin than is permitted in a marriage; the two people consider each other to be like family; and they agree to be responsible for each other’s basic living expenses. This is open to same-sex and opposite-sex couples. This is primarily used by the state to allocate pension benefits.

» Chapter 770: Couples may register for domestic partnerships if: Each person is at least 18 years old; neither person is married to or in a domestic partnership with someone else; the two people share a common residence; the two people are not nearer of kin than second cousins; the two people are of the same sex. Chapter 770 also offers various legal protections, including hospital visitation rights.

» In addition to the state of Wisconsin, public employers that offer health benefits to domestic partners under either Chapter 40 or Chapter 770 include: City of Appleton, Dane County, De Pere School District, Gateway Technical College (Kenosha), city of Madison, Madison Metropolitan School District, city of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Oshkosh School District and Western Wisconsin Technical College

Sources: Wisconsin Statutes; Fair Wisconsin