How to Divorce

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Gay couples had to struggle mightily to win the right to marry or form civil unions. Now some find that breaking up is hard to do, too.

In Rhode Island, for example, the state top court ruled in Dec that gay people get married in neighbouring Massachusetts can not divorce, because lawmakers have never defined marriage as anything but a union between a man & woman. In Missouri a judge to determine whether a lesbian married in Massachusetts can get an annulment.

“We all know people who have gone through divorces. At the end of the long & unhappy period, they’ve been able to breathe a sigh of relief, “said Cassandra Ormiston of Rhode Island, which is splitting from his wife, Margaret Chambers |. I own a home here, my friends are here, is my life here, “said Ormiston, who resigned to move to Massachusetts for a year. But “I can not see that on my horizon, that sigh of relief that it is over.” ‘

Over the past 4 years, Massachusetts has been the only state where gay marriage is legal, while 9 other states allow gay couples to enter into civil unions or domestic partnerships that offer many of the rights & privileges of marriage. The vast majority of these unions require court to dissolve.

Gay couples who still live in the country where they got hitched can split up with little difficulty; the laws of those states include divorce or dissolution procedures for gays couples. But gay couples who have moved to another state be conducted in trouble.

But the rules for divorce are stricter. Out-of-state couples could go back to Massachusetts to get divorced, but they wanted to live there for a year to establish residence first.

“I think a very unfair burden |. ” No matter what name they’d like to give to it, it’s a recognition of same sex unions, “said the Rev. Massachusetts, at least early on, let out-of-state gay couples get married there practically for the asking.

It isn’t clear how many gay couples have filed for divorce.

In Massachusetts, where more than 10000 same-sex couples have married since 2004, the courts don’t keep a breakdown of homosexual & heterosexual divorces. But Joyce Kauffman, a member of the Massachusetts lesbians & gay bar association, said probably more than one hundred gay divorces have been granted i Massachusetts, & perhaps many more.

She said she suspects the divorce rate among gay men is lower than that among heterosexual couples, because many of the same-sex couples who married in Massachusetts had probably been together years.

Vermont has dissolved 2% of the 8,666 civil unions performed there since they became legal in two thousand. These figures don’t include couples who split up in another state.

Chambers & Ormiston married in Massachusetts in 2004 & filed for divorce 2006th But Rhode Island Supreme Court last winter refused to recognise their marriage. This means that at least ninety other gay couples from the state who married in Massachusetts wouldn’t be able to divorce in Rhode Island if they wanted.

Getting a divorce could prove toughest in some of the forty-three states that have explicitly banned or limited same-sex unions, lawyers say.

In Missouri, which banned gay marriage in 2001, has a conservative lawmakers urged a judge not to grant an annulment to a lesbian married in Massachusetts.

Oregon began allowing gay couples to form domestic partnerships this year. But to avoid problems like those in Massachusetts, lawmakers added a provision that allows couples to dissolve their partnerships in Oregon even if they’ve moved out of state.

This is taken from California’s domestic partnership system & represents a major change in the normal rules of jurisdiction.

“It’s a new concept in family law area,” said Oregon lawyer Beth Allen, who works with Basic Rights Oregon, a gay group.

Same-sex couples can form civil unions in Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey & New Hampshire. She can enter into domestic partnerships or receive similar benefits in California, Oregon, Maine, Washington, Hawaii & the District of Columbia.

New York doesn’t allow gay marriages, but a judge has allowed a lesbian married in Canada to seek a divorce. In 2005, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the breach of a lesbian couple who entered into a civil union in Vermont.

Some Rhode Island lawmakers to push to legalise gay divorce. But Gov. Don Carcieri, a Republican who opposes gay marriage, opposes the idea. So are church leaders in the heavily Roman Catholic state.