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‘Til death do them part

Indiana lesbian couple can’t end a marriage celebrated in Ontario

Remember when same-sex couples who live in states that don’t allow gay marriages were coming to Canada to get legally hitched? Predictably, not all of those marriages worked out and, in at least a few states, a divorce is proving hard to come by. The latest case involves a lesbian couple who came to Toronto in 2005 to get married. Originally from Pennsylvania, Larissa Chism and Tara Ranzy eventually found themselves living in Indiana, which doesn’t allow same-sex marriages, when they decided to get a divorce. However, the judge in their case refused to grant it: “As the state of Indiana has chosen to prohibit same-sex marriage as a matter of public policy,” read the decision, “it might logically follow that Indiana would have a policy interest in granting same-sex divorce.” Though it’s been suggested that Chism and Ranzy return to Toronto to file for divorce, that won’t work either. Ontario requires at least one member of a couple to have been living in the province for at least six months in order to grant a divorce.

Indystar.com

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