GAY DIVORCE WOULD UNDERMINE MARRIAGE

Homosexual activists, fighting to attain legal same sex marriage, are creating an unlikely battleground:  divorce courts. In the latest skirmish, a Dallas judge, Tena Callahan, has ruled that her court has jurisdiction to hear the "divorce" case of two men "married" in Massachusetts in 2006 and now living in Texas.

 The decision caused quite a stir in the state where, in 2005, 75 percent of voters passed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union between one man and one woman.  Everybody thought that meant: NO GAY MARRIAGES; period; end of story.

But homosexual groups are trying to figure out how to force same sex marriage on states where voters are clearly and overwhelmingly against it.  This attempt to get the courts to grant divorces to gay couples is one way they're going about it.  Jennifer Pizer, marriage project director for the gay advocacy group, Lambda Legal, predicts an eventual end to bans on same sex marriage in Texas and across the country.

 The idea is to persuade the courts to recognize same sex marriages just enough to dissolve them. The momentary recognition of same sex marriage for the purpose of granting a divorce would allow gay activists a foot in the door, cracking it open enough to begin shoving through demands for full gay marriage rights.  

 Thirty states have taken the strongest possible legal stance against same sex marriage by amending their constitutions to ban it.  But this Dallas judge says the Texas marriage amendment violates the constitutional concept of equal protection under the law. This is the same argument that's being used to challenge California's marriage amendment, famously known as Proposition 8 in federal court. Many legal experts say it will not hold. 

The traditional definition of marriage does not interfere with anyone's personal liberty.  And it does not exclude homosexuals from the protection of the laws.

 Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott will appeal Callahan's ruling.  He says that because the state doesn't recognize same sex marriage, its courts cannot dissolve such a "marriage" through divorce. Abbot has fought this agenda before. In 2003 another Texas court granted the dissolution of a civil union. Abbott successfully had the ruling reversed.

And this strategy to undermine marriage laws has been tried in other states.  Last month, an Indiana judge denied the divorce of two women "married" in Canada.  Two years ago, the Rhode Island Supreme Court rejected the divorce of a Massachusetts-"married" lesbian couple.

 Constitutionally, courts are supposed to interpret and uphold the law, not rewrite it.

Supporters of same sex marriage know it's not popular.  In nearly all of the few states where gay marriage is legal, it was imposed by the courts.  Marriage amendments were supposed to be a firewall against this.  State officials must fight hard against this backdoor attempt to get the recognition of same sex marriage into states whose laws and constitutions clearly prohibit it.