Lawyers contend Rhode Island should grant same-sex divorce

[Doondoo]

Lawyers for the two women seeking Rhode Island’s first same-sex divorce are weighing in on the legal questions raised last month by the state Supreme Court.

The case involves two Providence women — Margaret R. Chambers and Cassandra B. Ormiston — who married in Fall River in May 2004, shortly after Massachusetts became the first state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

In legal briefs filed Thursday, their lawyers argued that the U.S. Constitution’s full faith and credit clause and the federal Defense of Marriage Act are irrelevant to this case. Instead, the lawyers said, the case should hinge on principles of comity, in which states respect the laws and judicial decisions of other states.

Ormiston’s lawyer, Nancy A. Palmisciano, said the women are asking the court “to recognize the license issued to them by the State of Massachusetts, for which they qualified and for which they applied in good faith. In other words, they wish to have this marriage certificate treated like the marriage certificate of every other couple. They do not wish to go through the purgatory of this case to rest in legal limbo.”



http://www.projo.com/news/content/samesex_divorce_02-12-07_D94BI78.1310fa0.html