Wall Street Journal covers gay divorce

“Supreme Court’s Gay-Marriage Ruling Allows Something Else: Gay Divorce” is a Wall Street Journal article on something that we covered in Real World Divorce. The Kentucky interviewee:

“One tsunami moving across the country is the gay marriage situation,” said Haynes. “We have a statute from 1998 that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman, but a federal court judge has ruled that it is unconstitutional.” Where do Kentuckians stand on the issue? “There has been a shift in public approval and it is now about 50/50,” said Haynes, “while lawyers ask ‘What’s so special about gay people that they get to avoid the horror of divorce?'” How does it work to be a state where gay marriage is illegal in a country where at least some states allow same-sex marriage? “I’ve got a case right now [August 2014] that a local judge is hanging onto. It is a lesbian couple with no children. They were legally married in Massachusetts. One spouse is a disabled Iraqi war veteran. The court system refuses to divorce them, which means they would have to go back to Massachusetts and live there for a year to get Massachusetts jurisdiction for the divorce.” What does Haynes think of the conundrum? “If you’re against gay marriage, why aren’t you in favor of gay divorce?”

The Journal article starts with a woman suing her wife in Georgia. This will work a lot better than in the past because now Georgia is forced to recognize same-sex marriages from other states (since the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act is void). The action then shifts southwest: “One Louisiana court processed a same-sex divorce before marrying its first same-sex couple.” There is a photo from Mississippi with this caption: “Lauren Czekala-Chatham, center, her attorney Carey Varnado, left, and her partner Dawn Jefferies discuss their appearance at the Mississippi Supreme Court in Jackson in January. Ms. Czekala-Chatham married another woman in California in 2008.” (Reader comment: “The attorney appears to be happy because he’s making a bundle on this case, and he knows more are coming.”)

Here is a sampling of the reader comments in the WSJ:

• Who cares? (Response from another reader: “Lawyers”)
• I doubt that there are Christian lawyers that will refuse to represent people in a same sex divorce. Lawyers have no principles. (See our History chapter, in which we note that “None of the attorneys interviewed expressed opposition to gay marriage.”)
• Please. Why is this page 1 news. (Response: “Because Lesbian Lives Matter”)
• I knew it… This whole thing about gay marriage was created by the Trial Lawyers Assoc so that they could increase their business. With marriage growing out of fashion in the ‘straight’ world, the only way to drum up more business is to get gays to marry so that they too will get divorced.
• Yes, divorce lawyers were strongly in favor of gay marriage because it means more business for them.
• The decision to stay together or not has been different for gay people, because they are together for love, and when love goes, they have been free to go. Even when children are involved, the thing has been to show the children that love includes freedom. … Marriage is seldom what people think it will be. It’s an individual’s sense of rightness of striving to be an individual, and be yoked for life at the same time, to someone different.
• Polygamy, when it comes and it will, is going to add yet another wrinkle to this process. I’m divorcing Jane, Mary, and Joanne but keeping Jennifer, George, and Bill – oh, and here are the visitation schedules for the 17 kids we have between us and acquired from previous relationships. Lawyers are going to have a field day.
• Why is it we think that same sex marriage would be any less a joke than the traditional? In the end if it is about money or sex it will fail. It is clear that is probably true about 50% of the time.
• Marriage never had any sanctity after all, it was Straights who ruined Marriage. (Our History chapter: “When I read arguments by opponents of gay marriage,” said one attorney, “I don’t recognize their description of straight marriage as some sort of sanctified institution. With no-fault statutes that kept the old alimony, property division, and child support rules, straight people made a mockery of civil marriage a long time ago. Marriage today is a way for a smart person with a low income to make money from a stupid person with a high income. What difference does it make whether the gold digger and mark are of the same sex?”)
• New Dictionary definition: gayvorce: noun, gay divorce