Source: Associated Press via Detroit Free Press
"Breaking up is hard to do," Neil Sadaka tells us in his popular 60s song [YouTube video], even though divorce rates among heterosexual couples seem to offer a contrary lesson.

But an Associated Press report indicates that the song is all-too true for some for gay and lesbian couples who have taken advantage of hard-fought political victories and have gotten hitched in one of the handful of states that grant marriage-like unions for same-sex couples.

Related in Qnews: Lack of federal and out-of-state recognition makes divorce a disaster for some married gay couples

Gay couples had to struggle to win the right to marry or form legal partnerships of one form or another in the few states that grant any legal recognition at all to same-sex couples. Now, some are finding that breaking up really is hard to do, too.

Gay couples who still live in the state where they got hitched can split up with little difficulty; the laws in those states include divorce or dissolution procedures for same-sex couples. But gay couples who have moved to another state are running into trouble, AP reports.

Massachusetts is the only state where gay marriage is legal, while nine other states allow gay couples to enter into some form of legal partnership. The vast majority of these unions require court action to be dissolved.

Same-sex couples can enter into domestic partnerships or receive similar benefits in California, Oregon, Maine, Washington, Hawaii and the District of Columbia. They can form civil unions in Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire.

Oregon and California both grant virtually all rights and responsibilities of "marriage" to couples who enter domestic partnerships in the states. But both states also took extra care to deal with the possibility of dissolution, AP reports.

Lawmakers in California added a provision to the domestic partnership laws that allows couples to dissolve their partnerships in California even if they have moved out of state -- a major change in the usual rules governing jurisdiction. Oregon adopted a similar measure for its domestic-partnership system.

Massachusetts didn't consider the unique problems of dissolution when it changed its laws to allow same-sex couples to get married. That's caused problems elsewhere as couples who married in the Bay State try to divorce.

Massachusetts, at least early on, let out-of-state gay couples get married there practically for the asking. But the rules governing divorce are stricter. Out-of-state couples could go back to Massachusetts to get divorced, but they would first have to live there for a year to establish residency.

Rhode Island's top court ruled in December that gay people married in neighboring Massachusetts can't get divorced in Rhode Island because lawmakers have never defined marriage as anything but a union between a man and woman. That means at least 90 other gay couples from the state who got married in Massachusetts would not be able to divorce in Rhode Island if they wanted to.

"We all know people who have gone through divorces. At the end of that long and unhappy period, they have been able to breathe a sigh of relief," said Cassandra Ormiston of Rhode Island, who is splitting from wife Margaret Chambers. "I do not see that on my horizon," she told Associated Press.

Getting a divorce could prove toughest in some of the 40 states that have explicitly banned or limited same-sex unions, lawyers say.

In Missouri, which banned gay marriage in 2001, a judge is deciding whether a lesbian married in Massachusetts can get an annulment. A conservative lawmaker has urged the judge not to grant an annulment.

Other states have dealt with the issue of divorce in different ways.

New York doesn't permit gay marriage, but a judge there has allowed a lesbian married in Canada to seek a divorce. In 2005, Iowa's Supreme Court upheld the breakup of a lesbian couple who entered into a civil union in Vermont.

Full article: Divorce difficult for gay couples | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press