Texas Battle on Gay Marriage Looms - NYTimes.com
The case in Texas involves two men who married in Cambridge, Mass., in 2006, then moved to Dallas the following year when one of them was transferred by his company, a lawyer for the couple, Peter A. Schulte, said.
The men decided to divorce in January and reached an amicable agreement about splitting up their house, cars and other property. But they had to file for divorce in Texas, because, like most other states, Massachusetts allows only residents to sue for divorce, Mr. Schulte said.
The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, a Republican, took the unusual step of intervening in the divorce proceeding last January. Mr. Abbott asserted that the state court could not dissolve the marriage because the Texas Constitution, as amended in 2005, did not recognize any marriage unless it was between a man and a woman.
Mr. Abbott had taken a similar position in 2003, when he won the reversal of a decision by a Texas court to dissolve a civil union between homosexuals.
But Mr. Schulte said his clients, who were identified in court documents as J.B. and H.B., had not sought to challenge the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. They were asking only to split up without having to return to Cambridge, as a heterosexual couple would have been able to do.
“It’s not fair to make them uproot their lives, move back to another state, wait a year and then file for divorce,” Mr. Schulte said.
The men’s private dispute has suddenly been sucked into the culture wars in Texas. Responding to the ruling, Mr. Abbott vowed he would “defend the traditional definition of marriage that was approved by the Texas voters.”
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