And I want the Tiffany lamp!!

In Min's post from Dec 7 on her "Don't mess with Min when I'm in Texas" blog, she brings up a recent court ruling by Dallas District Court Judge Tena Callahan that she has jurisdiction to hear a divorce case involving two "married" gay men who moved here from out of state. (See the Dallas Morning News article she referenced here.) The district judge indicated she further believed that Texas's constitutional amendment limiting "marriage" to a one man and one woman is actually unconstitutional under U. S. law because it doesn't provide "equal protection". (Like we need to be protected from marriage....? ; )

Anyway, Min goes on to say that she is perplexed by the situation where Texas effectively bans gay marriage, but then will grant a divorce to a gay couple married in another state. Well, it does sound kind of ironic. My position on "gay marriage" waffles depending on how inebriated I am. Part of me says, "Heck yeah! Those people should be subjected to the same sorted legal crap most of the rest of us go through at least once in life!" But this post isn't about my opinion on whether we should or shouldn't allow gay folks to get hitched.

The larger issue, of course, is that something as fundamental as marriage, which is normally a condition (or affliction, depending on how you look at it) which transfers across state and even national borders, must have a standard universal definition. This idea that someone is married in one state, and not another; or one nation, and not another, is simply unworkable in this day and age. We are no longer 19th farmers who never travel past the county line. Modern society is extremely mobile. We move all over the place, and whether you are legally married, or not, should be standard across the board with no ambiguity; no matter if you are in Vermont, Texas or Antarctica.

The U.S. federal courts are just going to have to step up to the plate and set a national definition on the legal condition/union of marriage. This activist district court judge's ruling in Dallas will, of course, promptly be whacked down by the Court of Appeals as unconstitutional under the Texas Constitution... But, maybe it will be the catalyst case that makes it to the U.S. Supreme Court where a landmark decision is made in 7 to 10 years defining the definition of marriage for the whole country. The more likely result if it made it that far would be that they would just punt back to the Texas Constitutional amendment, though.

The schizophrenic ruling by the district judge saying that, even though we ban gay marriage, we will grant you a gay divorce anyway, is silly (or maybe very shrewd on the judges part). But the hodgepodge of legal definitions of marriage for anyone, straight or gay, and between liberal leaning states and more conservative states is really the loony thing that needs to be addressed on a national level once and for all.

So, Min's post does bring up a serious issue and point. Our current various state's and national stances on whether same sex couples should be "married" or "divorced" doesn't make logical sense to me either. I really doubt that you would be able to find many other district court judges that are willing to hear same sex divorces in Texas right now, though, so I doubt there will be a flood of them in Texas....unless they all move to Dallas and get assigned to Judge Callahan's court.