Texas Nixes Gay Divorce

Red, orange, and yellow represent states where same-sex unions are banned by law.

This week a Texas couple filed for divorce in a Dallas court; but the Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said he will oppose the suit. In 2003, the same AG blocked a Beaumont couple from getting a divorce; they had obtained a civil union in Vermont.

As the Dallas Morning News reports,

The attorney general said Thursday that he will intervene in the Dallas case as well to defend Texas law – and the will of the people."
"In the State of Texas, marriage is – and has always been – a union between one man and one woman. To prevent other states from imposing their values on this state, Texas voters overwhelmingly approved a Constitutional amendment specifically defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman," he said in a written statement. "Because the parties' Massachusetts-issued arrangement is not a marriage under Texas law, they are asking a Texas court to recognize – and dissolve – something that does not legally exist."

In 2005, 76 percent of Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment banning not only gay marriage but also "any legal status identical or similar to marriage." The yes vote was over 90 percent in a lot of rural counties like mine.

The couple in this week's filing has been together 11 years and were married in Massachusetts, where they lived at the time, in 2006. A hearing will be scheduled after a mandatory 60-day cooling-off period.

As the Dallas Voice reports, the plaintiff's attorney, Peter Schulte, has said

the divorce is not a “test case” designed to try to advance LGBT equality. But this week he said he also doesn’t think it can hurt. “The gay community can’t get any worse than they are right now,” Schulte said. “We’re at ground zero.” Schulte said he’s disappointed that Abbott is trying to make the case about same-sex marriage as opposed to divorce. “He’s trying to muddy the issue and make this a political issue that he can try to capitalize on and take over [U.S.] Sen. [Kay Bailey] Hutchison’s seat when she resigns.”

Schulte has said he plans to argue that the divorce should be granted under the “full faith and credit clause” of the U.S. Constitution, which calls on states to recognize contracts from other states. However, the federal Defense of Marriage Act gives states the explicit right not to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.

Jenny Pizer of Lambda Legal's National Marriage Project says the Texas divorce suit could have unhappy effects on other gay couples: “Often bringing a lawsuit is not going to solve the problem and it can make the situation worse for that couple and for everyone else in that state by building an ever-higher edifice of bad law.” Others said they fear that "the Texas Supreme Court could use the same-sex divorce case as an opportunity to issue a broad interpretation of the constitutional amendment, endangering domestic partner benefits offered by cities including Dallas and Austin."

The plaintiff has asked that news organizations not report his or his partner's names because "Personal things could happen to us that wouldn't happen to other people. My company has an extremely low tolerance for publicity."

All of which points up the complete absurdity of the current situation for most gays in this country, many millions of us: in most places, you can't marry; if you do marry, you can't divorce; and whether you are married or not, you can still be fired just for being gay.

All because of stupid, arrogant, ignorant, fascist, fundamentalist Christianists and their unthinking bigotry.

But it's 2009, people. Way past time for all of that to stop. What are you going to do about it?