After the fanfare surrounding the legalization of same-sex marriage in the District faded, at-large D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson started hearing about a problem: states that wouldn't allow those same couples to later file for divorce.
"I received a number of reports from couples or attorneys about this impossible situation," Mendelson recalled Tuesday after a D.C. Council committee backed a plan that would loosen divorce laws for same-sex couples who married in the District but later moved to other jurisdictions.
The proposal would allow same-sex couples to divorce in D.C. courts without re-establishing residency in Washington if their new home states refuse to recognize their marriage -- and therefore grant them a divorce. D.C. law currently requires couples to live in Washington for six months before filing for divorce.
Mendelson said the change is necessary.
"It's an unfortunate side of the marriage question," Mendelson said. "The states aren't all on the same page, which has never been the case before when it comes to marriage."
Richard Rosendall, vice president of political affairs for the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, described the proposal as "kind of a housekeeping measure."
"If we were only dealing with D.C. and D.C. residents, it wouldn't be necessary," Rosendall said. "The trouble is only D.C. and six states at the moment have civil marriage equality, so there are 44 other states with different laws. " The change in D.C. law, Rosendall said, would help divorcing same-sex couples avoid further personal turmoil.
"Any end of a marriage is sad enough without having to be in legal limbo because of it," Rosendall said.
The bill's passage appears all but assured. So far, nine council members have joined Mendelson in co-sponsoring the legislation.
D.C. courts spokeswoman Leah Gurowitz said the court doesn't track marriage licenses and divorce filings by sexual orientation, making it impossible to know how many homosexual couples have sought to dissolve their marriages in D.C.
Court statistics, however, show that in the one-year span after the legalization of same-sex marriage, applications for marriage licenses in the District more than doubled. At the same time, divorce filings climbed by only 3 percent.
