NEBRASKA – A lesbian couple have been denied a divorce in Nebraska.
Brenda Mueller and Deborah Pry had a civil union in Vermont in 2003, a state which now allows marriage for gay couples. The couple moved to Nebraska where they filed for divorce in Otoe County Court.
But District Judge Randall Rehmeier said Nebraska’s constitutional ban on gay marriage meant he could not allow their application. As Nebraska doesn’t recognize gay marriage, it doesn’t recognize gay divorce.
Ken Upton Jr., an attorney for advocacy group Lambda Legal, said, “The first thing we tell same-sex couples who live in a non-recognition state: Think long and hard before you get married and return home. Not only do you face the lack of access to divorce courts, you lack the safeguards that state marriage laws provide different-sex married couples.”
Last September, an appeals court in Texas ruled that gay couples who married in other states cannot divorce. The case concerned a gay couple who wed in Massachusetts in 2007 and then returned to Dallas. Texas does not recognize same-sex marriage and has a constitutional amendment explicitly banning the practice.
