MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The state Supreme Court has refused to directly take up a challenge to Wisconsin’s domestic partner registry, a move gay rights advocates touted Wednesday as a triumph for same-sex couples.

A conservative group named Wisconsin Family Action said the registry violated the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and argued the issue was so important that the Supreme Court should take it up immediately, bypassing the lower courts.

The Supreme Court justices did not explain the refusal in a terse order issued Tuesday and released Wednesday.

Wisconsin Family Action attorneys Richard Esenberg and Michael Dean said in a statement that the Supreme Court rarely takes cases directly, and that the group might file an action at the trial court level.

“We know that the court’s decision ... can be based on any number of factors and implies nothing about the merits of the constitutional challenge,” the attorneys said.

Lawyers for Fair Wisconsin, a gay rights group that lobbied lawmakers to approve the registry, hailed the Supreme Court’s move as a victory.

“Even with the discriminatory amendment excluding same-sex couples from marriage, the Wisconsin Constitution does not prevent enactment of laws that offer basic decency and security for couples,” Fair Wisconsin attorney Christopher Clark said in a statement Wednesday.

Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, proposed the registry as a means of granting same-sex couples more legal rights, such as the right to visit each other in hospitals, make end-of-life decisions and inherit each other’s property. The Democratic-controlled Legislature approved the registry as part of the state budget, and it went into effect in August.

As of Wednesday, 1,166 same-sex couples had joined the registry, according to the state Department of Health Services.

Opponents say the registry conflicts with a ban on same-sex marriage that voters added to the state constitution in 2006. Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen refused to defend the registry but said the lawmakers’ decision trumped that of the voters.

Gay rights advocates counter that the registry’s benefits do not come close to the rights that come with marriage.

Lester Pines, a Madison attorney hired by Doyle to defend the registry, told the Supreme Court in September that a trial court should take up the challenge first. He argued there was no urgency and that too many facts were still in dispute.

“We are pleased the court didn’t take jurisdiction. We didn’t think it was the place this lawsuit should start,” Pines said. “We will prevail in the circuit (trial) court and all the way up to the Supreme Court if that’s what happens. This law is absolutely constitutional and an attack on it is just flat-out wrong.”