Something I found interesting in today's headlines was that a Missouri man was denied a same-sex divorce.
I find it kind of interesting, like the reporter in the above article, that this is one of the first things I've heard about gay couples fighting to be able to legally get a divorce.
I guess it makes sense that if a marriage isn't recognized by a state, a divorce wouldn't be either.
However, just like the right to be married, I think everyone should have the right to be divorced. Of course, I guess it's just a technicality, like marriage is these days anyways to many.
I am an avid television watcher, as my husband and friends can tell you. In one of my favorite "night-time soaps" (as my mother likes to call them), Grey's Anatomy, the two main characters don't get married at first. They self commit themselves to each other on a post-it note. It seems silly, and it is, but it gets a point across about how marriage is viewed by many today in the U.S. It's a piece of paper, saying that you have devoted yourself to each other. Now, I doubt most newly weds view it that way, or many married people. However, it is a statement saying by law (and depending on your beliefs, by God) you are bound together until death. (Or eternity, if you have that belief).
In the U.S. in 2014, it is common place for a man and a woman to live together instead of getting married. It's common for a man and a woman who are married to also be "separated" instead of divorced. So, the same goes for gay and lesbian couples. The only difference, is that if you want to ever have that piece of paper, saying you are married again, you have to take care of the first one.
So, sure this couple could be "separated" instead of divorced, and based on how Americans live now, it might not be that big of a deal that they aren't "officially divorced."
One of the articles on this story said this case "isn't about marriage equality," because all they want is a divorce. It's clear to me though, both allowing gay marriage and gay divorce is about the same thing: equality.
Equality is what America is founded on, right? We don't discriminated based on religion or disabilities right? Isn't it about time we start showing that instead of talking the big talk, while not walking the walk?
Even if it's against your religious beliefs, or your moral code, or whatever the case may be; same-sex marriage is about equality right along with same-sex divorce.
