Marriage Equality and Divorce Equality Reach Illinois

On November 20, 2013, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed into law the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, which will make same-sex marriage legal in Illinois as of June 1, 2014.

At this time, fourteen states, the District of Columbia, eight counties in New Mexico and eight Native American tribal jurisdictions issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Hawaii will follow suit as of December 2, 2013, and Illinois in June 2014.

On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Windsor v. United States, held that Section 3 of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which defined marriage as being the union of one man and one woman, was an unconstitutional violation of the Fifth Amendment.

Outside of the US, as of August 2013, approximately fifteen countries (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Uruguay) as well as parts of Mexico allow same sex marriage.

In spite of its slow march forward, the battle for marriage equality continues to meet strong opposition, and it continues to be fought in courts as well as legislatures nationwide. Among these are the following:

• McGee v. Cole is pending in the US District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, challenging West Virginia’s prohibition on same-sex marriage.
• In re Marriage of J.B. and H.B and State v. Naylor both are pending before the Texas Supreme Court, in two separate cases with same-sex couples who were married in other jurisdictions seeking to avail themselves of Texas’s state divorce statute.
• In Virginia, Bostic v. Rainey is pending before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Harris et al. v. McDonnell et al. is pending before the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, both challenging Virginia’s prohibition on same-sex marriage.
• Sevcik v. Sandoval is pending before the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, challenging the denial of same-sex marriage by the Nevada Constitution and Nevada statute.

One thing is clear and that is that same-sex marriage is on the rise and it is here to stay. With marriage equality comes divorce equality (in the states that allow same-sex divorce), and with divorce equality comes a myriad of legal entanglements that do not confront heterosexual couples.