Judi Trampf (left) and her partner Katy Heyning speak during a news conference in February by the American Civil Liberties Union about a lawsuit challenging the state’s seven-year-old ban on gay marriage. Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen took the unusual step Friday of asking a federal judge to immediately block her own decision if she does strike down the ban. Credit: Mark Hoffman

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Madison — Sensing trouble ahead for Wisconsin's gay marriage ban, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen took the unusual step Friday of asking a federal judge to immediately block her own decision if she does strike down the ban.

Also Friday, Gov. Scott Walker backed away from his previous support for the state ban on gay marriage passed in 2006, saying he didn't know if it violated the U.S. Constitution, would still be approved by voters today or would amount to a big change for the state's values and economy if overturned.

Making clear he wanted no part of this legal battle in an election year, the Republican governor said he was focused on other priorities. Though as governor Walker is one of the defendants in the lawsuit, he said gay marriage was an issue for Van Hollen and the federal judge, not him.

"Any federal judge has got to look at that law not only with respect to the state's constitution but what it means in terms of the U.S. Constitution, as well. Again, I'm not going to pretend to tell a federal judge in that regard what he or she should do about it," Walker said. "...I don't know what (allowing gay marriage) means. Voters don't talk to me about that. They talk to me about the economy. They talk to me about their kids' schools."

It was a rare moment of uncertainty for Walker, who thrives on taking firm stances on controversial questions.

In the past, Walker has been a strong backer of the ban. As governor, he stopped defending the state's domestic partnership law against a legal challenge, saying he thought the law violated the state constitution's gay marriage ban. Others are now defending that law, which is before the state Supreme Court.

In February, just after the federal lawsuit challenging the state ban was filed, Walker said he was obligated to uphold the ban because it was part of the constitution. He said then he had "not heard significant movement across the state" to overturn the ban.

In March 2013, he reaffirmed his support for the ban after musing on the television show "Meet the Press" about whether government needed any role in sanctioning marriage.

Walker's Democratic opponent in the governor's race, former Trek Bicycle executive Mary Burke, has already said she supports gay marriage and the federal lawsuit.

Among registered voters, 55% favor allowing gay marriage, while 37% oppose it and 6% say they do not know, according to a Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday.

Van Hollen's pre-emptive motion from earlier Friday seems to concede the state will likely lose the case, at least initially. Normally, lawyers wait until a judge rules against their client before asking for a stay.

The filing comes less than a week after the Republican attorney general said on WISN's "UpFront with Mike Gousha" he would not be surprised to lose the case. Nonetheless, he said he had an obligation to defend the amendment to the state constitution approved with nearly 60% of the vote in the 2006 referendum.

Friday's request is also the clearest sign yet that Van Hollen will appeal the decision to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago if the state loses.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb in Madison is expected to rule soon on whether Wisconsin's ban is in keeping with the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of due process and equal protection under the law.

The case comes amid a wave of court decisions around the country striking down gay marriage bans.

Nineteen states now allow same-sex marriage, including Oregon and Pennsylvania, where judges issued rulings this week, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Additionally, judges have issued rulings in favor of gay marriage in 11 other states, but those rulings have been blocked while they are appealed, according to the group Freedom to Marry.

Four same-sex couples sued Van Hollen, Walker and others in February in an effort to overturn the ban on gay marriage and civil unions, as well as an obscure, long-standing "marriage evasion" law that makes it a crime for couples here to get married in another state if the marriage wouldn't be recognized in Wisconsin.

In Friday's filing, Van Hollen noted that courts have often stayed rulings overturning gay marriage bans in other states so that appeals could be pursued.

His move is aimed at avoiding situations in some other states, where judges overturned gay marriage bans and couples immediately began to wed, only to have higher courts block the decisions pending appeal. In those situations, a small number of same-sex couples were able to marry but many others weren't.

"The failures of the district courts in Utah and Michigan to immediately enter stays to preserve the status quo for appeal led to chaos, confusion, uncertainty, and ultimately, further litigation," Van Hollen wrote.

John Knight, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing the couples, called the move "mean-spirited." He said the state had no grounds for a stay because it would not suffer irreparable harm if same-sex couples were allowed to marry.

"I think the state is fighting desperately to make sure no same-sex couple can get married in Wisconsin and they're also signaling their case is weak," he said.

Milwaukee County Clerk Joe Czarnezki and Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell are technically defendants in the lawsuits, but both Democrats oppose the state's gay marriage ban. They have asked Crabb to allow them to immediately issue marriage licenses to gay couples if she strikes down the provision.

In an interview Friday, McDonell said he doesn't want to see a confusing "yo-yo effect" in which Crabb strikes down the state ban but the appeals court then stays her decision. But McDonell said gay couples have been deprived of their rights under the federal constitution for too long.

"It's been long enough that they've been treated like second-class citizens," McDonell said.

He acknowledged his office on Madison's isthmus could be suddenly swamped with people if the ban is struck down. Some couples might move quickly out of concern that a higher court could reverse or stay Crabb's ruling and the window for receiving marriage license could close.

"We'd process people as best we could," he said.

Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel, a Republican running to succeed Van Hollen as attorney general, said he agreed with the decision to request a stay from Crabb and would have done the same thing.

"Regardless on how someone may feel about the issue of gay marriage, the attorney general has an obligation to uphold Wisconsin law and our state's Constitution," Schimel said in a statement.

The three Democrats running for attorney general — Jefferson County District Attorney Susan Happ, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne and state Rep. Jon Richards of Milwaukee — said they would not defend the gay marriage ban if they had Van Hollen's job.

"I don't see why we should have state-sponsored discrimination," said Ozanne, who called Van Hollen's latest filing "mean-spirited."

"I wouldn't defend it and I wouldn't put the resources into defending a law that I believe to be unconstitutional," Happ said.

In a written statement, Richards called Van Hollen's request "inappropriate and wrong."

"I'm glad he's finally admitting that the Wisconsin ban on marriage equality will be found unconstitutional, but continuing to hold families hostage is the wrong response," his statement said. "...The right thing to do here is to stop defending this unconstitutional, anti-family law."

The winner in the Aug. 12 Democratic primary will face Schimel in the Nov. 4 general election.

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