• 06
  • July
    2011

Ross Douthat opines in a column for the New York Times that same-sex couples will largely define the institution of marriage in for the LGBT community - and quite possibly for opposite-sex couples as well - in the years to come. Now that New York lawmakers have recognized same-sex marriage as a legal right, newly married couples will "gradually transform gay marriage from an idea into a culture."

And what will the divorce rates look like for same-sex couples? Generally, all the same family law issues now apply equally to married same-sex couples: spousal support, child custody, divorce.

New York's recognition of same-sex marriage means that married same-sex couples are to be treated like married opposite-sex couples - though there are things to be ironed out, like whether private employers will be required to provide health insurance benefits to the employee's spouse - but the end result should be a shortening of differences between the way same-sex couples are treated under the law versus the way opposite-sex couples are treated.

Douthat writes that same-sex couples will "determine the social expectations associated with gay wedlock, the gay marriage and divorce rates, the differences and similarities between gay and lesbian unions, the way marriage interacts with gay parenting, and much more besides."

As New York and Long Island divorce attorneys, we are particularly interested in seeing where the law goes and how it responds when same-sex couples take the institution of marriage "from an idea into a culture," as Douthat writes.

Our prediction? Same-sex marriage will cause relatively minor changes in substantive family law, at least in the short term, as legislatures in the six states that have legalized same-sex marriage wait to see how things play out.

But for individual same-sex couples, the new law is a positive step forward in providing the same rights, responsibilities and protections that opposite-sex couples enjoy - and, given that same-sex couples are every bit as human as opposite-sex couples, we predict that divorce rates for same-sex couples will be quite similar to the norm.

Source: The New York Times, "More Perfect Unions," by Ross Douthat, 07/03/11