Breaking Up is Hard to Do Legally for Gay Couples

USA Today recently reported that formally breaking up is as hard to do for gay couples as is finding a state that will marry them.

Same-sex marriage is currently legal in only one state, Massachusetts. Same-sex couples can form legal civil unions in four states: Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire. And they can enter into domestic partnerships in California, Oregon, Maine, Washington, Hawaii and the District of Columbia.

Many of these couples only travel to these states to ratify legally binding unions and live in other states. Now, it seems many are seeking a divorce from their partner, but are finding it virtually impossible to secure. Getting a divorce is proving especially tough for gays in the 43 states that have explicitly banned or limited same-sex unions.

In Rhode Island, for example, the state's top court in December ruled that gays married in neighboring Massachusetts cannot get a divorce in the state because they are not legally married; lawmakers have never defined marriage as anything but a union between a man and a woman.

USA Today reports that a judge in Missouri is deciding whether a lesbian couple married in Massachusetts can get an annulment. Missouri banned gay marriage in 2001 and one conservative lawmaker in that state has urged a judge not to grant an annulment to the couple. Cases like this will only proliferate in the future as our country seeks to come to grips legally with same-sex relationships.

Given the clear teaching of Scripture regarding homosexuality, it is no surprise that such confusion has resulted from some governments putting their imprimatur on that which God has forbidden. When the great exchange of Romans 1 is made and even celebrated, moral chaos is bound to ensue.

Hopefully, by God's grace, these "divorces" will lead some gays out of darkness and into the marvelous light of God's redeeming love in Christ Jesus. Every follower of Christ is an illustration that sin will not have the final word in this world and it is the Gospel that restores order to the chaos and gives hope for every moral rebel.