Ever Thought About Gay Divorce?

Going through a divorce is taxing enough when all the legal proceedings are clear and uniform in every state. But when different states have different laws on same-sex marriage, and therefore same-sex divorce, it makes for a far more complicated, emotionally and financially trying divorce proceeding.

Say that you’re a gay couple that got married in Massachusetts, and now live in Texas. Like so many heterosexual marriages, yours has fallen apart, and you want to file for a divorce. You face a problem. Texas doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, so there are no precedents set for a same-sex divorce. You file for a divorce anyway, just to see what happens, and a judge in Austin grants it. But then Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appeals the decision and claims that he is protecting the “traditional definition of marriage” by doing the same for divorce. Now it feels like you’ve hit a wall. The attorney general says you can only void the marriage, and that the state can’t dissolve a marriage that it never recognized as valid. Voiding the marriage, however, would render it invalid. It’s also how they handle cases of inbreeding, and essentially it’ll be like the marriage never legally existed. In this particular case, specifically of former couple Angelique Naylor and Sabina Daly, the district judge argued that the attorney general filed his appeal a day too late, and that he could not intervene with the divorce ruling. The attorney general’s office disagrees, and what results is much confusion.