If the goal of those opposing same-sex marriage is to keep us from getting married, or having our relationships legally recognized, or "destroying" marriage, you might think they'd be happy enough to see our relationships formally dissolved.
But that's clearly not the case. The most recent example of an eager politician deploying gay equality as a strategy rather than an issue is Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who wants to prevent a lesbian couple legally married in Massachusetts from getting a divorce in his state.
It's easy to simply scoff at this story, but it's enormously important. It's not just marriage our opponents are out to deny us - it's any acknowledgement in the law that our relationships exist. Even the legal mechanism for undoing our marriages is too much legal recognition for them.
What they want is for us to return to the closet.
It is our invisibility they desire. They can no longer plausibly claim we don't exist at all, but they'll be damned if they'll allow the law to include us either explicitly or even implicitly. Better a married gay couple than a divorced one, if it means permitting a gay couple to invoke the law of divorce.
Those of us who are old enough grew up in that netherworld where the law simply had nothing to say about us, and everyone was allowed to live in denial about our existence. We had to fend for ourselves, literally outside the law.
We will not return to those days, and neither will anyone else. Our existence in the law is now firmly enough established - even if it's to deny us marriage under state constitutions - that the closet is no longer an option, for us or for the rest of the country.
Yet that is what a Texas politician is trying to do, leave a same-sex couple in the legal oblivion that he thinks should be their fate.
3 Comments for “Nowheresville”
posted by Jorge on
Well, yeah, in modern times divorce is a much more important legal and social right than marriage is. Any two people can shack up, buy a priest or judge, and call themselves married. Divorce is what protects people who are married. You are entitled to your assets, you are entitled to seek redress for your spouse’s wrongs, his abuse and infidelity. A divorce means you really were married.
If we were in Biblical times I suppose the argument would be about dowries or some such nonsense.
posted by Aubrey on
This is definitely not the first time a state has banned a same-sex divorce (while not recognizing same-sex marriage).
In the past year (or 2?) a Rhode Island couple who were married in Massachusetts tried to file for divorce in RI. The case worked its way up the legal system (I believe).
End result – no divorce forthcoming.
Though I have no illusions about Texas (I lived in Dallas at one time, my brother and mother live in Austin), I don’t quite see the extraordinary point Link is making here.
i.e., we didn’t need a denial of divorce to tell us how the Texas political establishment sees the gay community.
I do find Jorge’s take on the matter interesting, though.
Final note – I should note that Dallas, Houston and Austin have incredibly vibrant gay communities. Dallas, when I lived there, had 2 openly gay city council members (out of 11?). Dallas County also in the recent past had (has?) a lesbian sheriff (head of the sheriff’s department for the county). Houston has one of the largest gay communities in the country.
But when you get outside the cities, things can get tough.
Still, the divorce case doesn’t resonate for me as it does for Link.
posted by Anthony on
Don’t tell NDF that there are actually thriving gay communities in Texas or anywhere else for that matter – he’ll lose it. Can’t have anyone being themselves or being proud and happy about it.