Joined for Life? Here's a good example of the trouble with civil unions as "marriage lite." According to this AP report, Gary Roengarten and Peter Downes entered into a civil union in Vermont, but their relationship has since soured. Now, they find that they can't legally dissolve their union via a court in Connecticut, where they reside, because that state (like the other 49 outside of Vermont) doesn't recognize civil unions in the first place. A Vermont court could dissolve their legal union (the equivalent of granting a divorce), but only if one of the men were a Vermont resident.
Rosengarten's attorney said his client wants a formal dissolution to protect the inheritance of his three adult children. "These are two very private people who want to have this resolved with dignity and discretion," he explained.
Opinion Journal, on the Wall Street Journal website, has some
fun with this (scroll all the way down to the item titled Marriage
Plus), opining:
"Unlike today's marriages, a civil union is really for life."Though anyone can get a civil union license in Vermont, state law requires at least one party be a legal resident before the family courts will rule on a dissolution. Oh well, maybe this will provide Rosengarten and Downes with the impetus to patch things up."
But it's no joke to those who discover themselves legally bound
together with no way out. Consigned to the realm of halfway
measures and semi-equality, same-sex couples may find this sort of
legal limbo becoming more familiar. Sooner or later, the other 49
and their courts, and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court, will have
to come to terms with what has happened in Vermont. Or, much better
still, realize that barring gay and lesbian couples from marrying
in the standard manner is not a tenable situation.