PROVIDENCE, R.I.—A gay woman married in Massachusetts has filed for divorce in Rhode Island's Superior Court, a tactical move intended to skirt a major roadblock caused by a recent state Supreme Court ruling.
Louis Pulner, an attorney for Margaret Chambers, said the woman filed the motion Thursday, a week after Rhode Island's Supreme Court ruled the couple's divorce case could not proceed in Family Court.
In the ruling, the state's top court decided that when lawmakers created the Family Court in 1961, they never gave it the power to dissolve same-sex unions.
Pulner said he decided to file for divorce in Superior Court because it has broader powers than Family Court. Unless the case proceeds there, at least one of the women could be forced to move to Massachusetts and seek a divorce from Bay State courts.
Chambers married Cassandra Ormiston three years ago in nearby Fall River, Mass., shortly after Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage. The couple filed for divorce last year in Rhode Island, where they both live, citing irreconcilable differences.
Massachusetts restricts gay marriages to residents of states where the marriage would be recognized. A Massachusetts judge decided last year that no law specifically bans same-sex marriages in Rhode Island, though the state has taken no action to recognize them.
Neither Chambers or Ormiston want to relocate to get the divorce.
"I cannot fathom that there is not a forum in the state of Rhode Island for a legally married couple to dissolve their marriage," Pulner said.
Ormiston's lawyer, Nancy Palmisciano, said she did not object to Pulner's filing.
"The point of this whole thing is to get these ladies divorced," she said.
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Information from: The Providence Journal, http://www.projo.com/
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