The Gay Divorce

Contents:

• CELEBRATG MY (GAY) DIVORCE
• GAY MORMON WHO BEME FAMO FOR MIXED-ORIENTATN MARRIAGE IS DIVORCG HIS WIFE

CELEBRATG MY (GAY) DIVORCE

Their spl was unexpected sce the uple had bee kd of an in for gay people California.

Celebratg My (Gay) DivorceMarriage equaly means divorce equaly—and I feel pri, as well as sadns, about my spl om my WhmanEdor’s Note: This article is part of a seri about the gay-rights movement and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Augt 25, 2013, I said “I do” to Jim, my partner of ne years, who beme my “lawfully wedd hband. I didn’t want to be “gay married”; I wanted to be “married” like any other uple, thank you very much. Our divorce, I thk, did as much as to legimize marriage equaly as our more: How gay marriage beme a nstutnal rightLike so many other people of my generatn, I never thought I’d be able to marry “my hband” and “to love, re for, and support him, ” as we put our vows.

As she explaed later, after other gay male upl town got hched, “I like to thk that my [male] iends who have hbands n fd a ty b of validatn hearg that term applied to their chosen one. (I also didn’t want to be known as the “gay divorcé, ” as some of my iends began llg me. We did not—uld not—jt snap our fgers and erase our turned out, many of our iends—straight and gay—didn’t thk divorce laws applied to same-sex upl.

GAY MORMON WHO BEME FAMO FOR MIXED-ORIENTATN MARRIAGE IS DIVORCG HIS WIFE

Fred Hertz, a California-based lawyer specializg same-sex-fay law, told me: “What is really surprisg to many of my clients is there is no separate set of l for gay upl—nventnal heterosexual divorce law appli to all married upl, gay or straight. I, too, have been a very public advote for same-sex marriage, and I feared that I had “let down my tribe, ” as another gay man told me after his marriage end.