Same Sex Marriage or Same Sex Divorce…here is the other side of the coin.

Divorce. Not easy for anyone.

I met an extremely nice man the other day and we had a short and a quick chat (I was waiting for my kids, he was on the go) about the LGBT community. I told him about Polyhistor.net, about my friend Kendall, about Del Shores and how great Jason Dottley is doing. He had never hear of Sordid Lives, although he did admit that the LGBT community was all ‘his’ (“Oh, I’m totally at home in the LGBT community, that’s my community”). We spoke of civil rights, of helping others find themselves and living their lives in acceptance…it was a very nice chat. K. (I’ll call him that) told me that his present problem in life is getting a divorce. I thought he was possibly getting a divorce from a woman so that he could be with a man. How silly of me. He was legally married to a man, because he had married in Canada. He could not get divorced within the United States unless he lived in Utah for a year and got a divorce there, or moved back to Canada and lived there for a while. I thought that was the oddest situation.

I know of many individuals that would love to be married, but cannot (same-sex marriage laws). I have never encountered a situation, in which an individual wants a divorce and cannot get one. So (yes, here it comes) I did some research on the matter.

Without going into the details of SSM (same-sex marriages) and how difficult it was before C38 was passed, the bill in Canada allowing SSMs, I found loads of information. The one I found most interesting was the fact that although marriage was legalized, until 2004 no one had ever filed for a divorce, and even that was hard to do. In 2003 a lesbian couple was granted a divorce, but only after it had been initially denied on the basis of the federal Divorce Act, because the word “spouse” is defined as only a “either of a man or a woman who are married to one another”. So since the word “spouse” was then ruled unconstitutional by Madame Justice Ruth Mesbur, the ruling was revoked, the divorce was recognized and proclaimed legal (Wikipedia.org). Now it may seem easy to get married in Canada, anyone willing to wait 20 days (between filing and actual ceremony) can have their dream wedding, fully legal, of course. Getting a divorce is a totally different matter.

First off, if you get married in Canada, no American court, unless in the states where SSM has been legalized, is going to recognize your marriage, ergo you are not going to have a chance of getting a divorce. Quite simply, if you’re not married, how can you get a divorce? In Canada you get married within 20 days, to get a divorce it takes a year! At least one partner must reside in Canada for one year (continuous) to be eligible for divorce (about.com). As for Utah, I could not find anything that states SSM’s can be divorced in Utah, since it also does not allow SSMs at all.

So although there are states in the US that do allow SSMs, they have strict residency requirements if you want to get a divorce. I did check, the residency requirements are for hetero couples as well, there the law makes no difference. If you are looking to hop on over to Canada for a marriage because of the short waiting period, you better be sure that the partner you marry is one you want to be with for a long time!