New York’s Domestic Relations Law, Section 230, sets residency requirements for married couples seeking to divorce in the state, which vary in length – one or two years — depending upon whether they were married in New York and have lived in the state continuously. This creates a problem for out-of-state same-sex couples who come to New York to marry and then return to a home jurisdiction that does not recognize same-sex marriages. The problem … <Read More>
gay divorce
The Bitter-Enders in the World of Marriage Equality
When the Supreme Court says it’s done, then it’s done, right? Well, not necessarily in Mississippi, where resistance to the impact and consequences of marriage equality lingers. In recent days, the Mississippi Supreme Court has weighed in — sort of — on gay divorce, and a trial judge in Hinds County heard arguments about the state’s continuing ban on “same-sex” adoption.
The divorce case, Czekala v. State, No. 2014-CA-00008-SCT (Nov. 5, 2015), involves a lesbian … <Read More>
Divided Texas Supreme Court Evades Deciding Gay Divorce Issue
With a ruling on same-sex marriage from the United States Supreme Court just days away, the Texas Supreme Court finally acted on June 19, 2015, on a pair of appeals argued nineteen months ago in November 2013, holding in State v. Naylor, 2015 Tex. LEXIS 581, that the state’s attorney general did not have standing to appeal an Austin trial judge’s order granting a judgment “intended to be a substitute for a valid and subsisting … <Read More>
Florida Courts Can Grant Divorces to Married Same-Sex Couples
The Florida 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled on April 24 in Brandon-Thomas v. Brandon-Thomas, 2015 Fla. App. LEXIS 6051, 2015 WL 1874457, that a same-sex couple that married in Massachusetts but resides in Florida could seek a divorce in a Florida court. The unanimous three-judge panel found that the state had no rational basis for treating such a marriage differently from other out-of-state marriages. The ruling reverses a 2013 decision by Lee County Circuit … <Read More>