The Gay Divorce

Contents:

• CELEBRATG MY (GAY) DIVORCE
• HOW MANY GAY MARRIAG END IN DIVORCE?
• PREDICTORS OF RELATNSHIP DISSOLUTN LBIAN, GAY, AND HETEROSEXUAL ADOPTIVE PARENTS
• WHY LBIAN UPL ARE MORE LIKELY TO DIVORCE THAN GAY ON
• UNMARRIED AND GAY DIVORCE ISSU

CELEBRATG MY (GAY) DIVORCE

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.

HOW MANY GAY MARRIAG END IN DIVORCE?

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.

PREDICTORS OF RELATNSHIP DISSOLUTN LBIAN, GAY, AND HETEROSEXUAL ADOPTIVE PARENTS

(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.

WHY LBIAN UPL ARE MORE LIKELY TO DIVORCE THAN GAY ON

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. The statistics may provi some sight to how the legalizatn of same-sex marriage has affected the divorce rate among gay and lbian Marriag Takg PlaceSce the legalizatn of same-sex marriag 2015, there has been a drastic crease the unns.

UNMARRIED AND GAY DIVORCE ISSU

This also means that lbian divorce rat are higher than other same-sex upl and about twice as likely to file for divorce as gay upl.

Like heterosexuals, many lbian, gay, and bisexual people want to form stable, long-lastg relatnships and many of them do.

In fact, rearchers have found that the majory of lbian, and gay, adults are mted relatnships and many upl have been together 10 or more years. Empiril rearch also shows that lbian and gay upl have levels of relatnship satisfactn siar to or higher than those of heterosexual upl. How do laws that lim marriage to heterosexuals affect gay and lbian people?