Divorce Lawyers Seeking First Same-Sex Rhode Island Divorce
The divorce lawyers of two women who were married in Massachusetts are now seeking a divorce in Rhode Island—but the Rhode Island court can’t hear the divorce case until it’s determined whether or not the state recognizes the Massachusetts marriage. After Massachusetts became the first state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004, Providence women Margaret R. Chambers and Cassandra B. Ormiston quickly married in Fall River in 2004, according to a story in The Providence Journal. The couple wants Rhode Island to recognize their Massachusetts marriage and thus allow the divorce. Rhode Island law does not explicitly prohibit or allow same-sex marriages.
Specifically, the women’s attorneys say that Rhode Island should respect the laws and judicial decisions of other states like Massachusetts. They say the issue at hand is about whether Rhode Island will recognize the validity of same-sex marriage certificates from other states and foreign countries and is not concerned with the state granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
This divorce case reached the Rhode Island Supreme Court in December when Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr. asked the Supreme Court if his court had jurisdiction to hear this matter. The Rhode Island Supreme Court sent the case back in January to the Family Court to answer a series of factual questions and to determine whether the “Full Faith and Credit Clause” and the Defense of Marriage Act apply to this case.
In Article IV, Section 1 of the U. S. Constitution, the “Full Faith and Credit Clause” stipulates that “full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state.” Chambers’ lawyer, Louis M. Pulner, argues in the story that the courts have not turned to this clause in the past to recognize marriages and that the courts should first try to decide this case on non-constitutional grounds.
Signed by Bill Clinton in 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act allows states to refuse recognition of same-sex marriages in other states and defines marriage as occurring exclusively between one man and one woman for all purposes under federal law. Pulner says that this act should have no bearing on the case. Ormiston’s attorney, Nancy A. Palmisciano, says in the story that the Defense of Marriage Act leaves every state to its own devices when every state must respect the laws and judicial decisions of other states as “as part of its own legal precedents and historical tradition.”
