Post Uses Same-Sex 'Divorce' to Push Gay 'Marriage'

In the liberal media's ongoing campaign to make same-sex “marriage” a civil right comes the latest strategy: Bemoan the difficulties faced by homosexual couples “married” in Massachusetts who now want a divorce. 

According to The Washington Post, these couples' “trauma of divorce is compounded by legal and financial difficulties that heterosexual couples generally are spared.”

Prominently placed (A-3), the full-page article “Same-Sex Divorce Challenges the Legal System” by reporter Dafna Linzer quotes only sources supporting gay “marriage” and never states the fact that only one state in the country, Massachusetts, actually has gay “marriage” and thus gay “divorce.”

An example of this sympathy-generating liberal bias deals with alimony:

“For same-sex couples, divorce can be financially ruinous. Heterosexual couples claim a tax deduction for alimony payments, but that benefit is not available to gay and lesbian spouses because the Internal Revenue Service does not recognize their marriages.”

A few more paragraphs later, Linzer quotes a divorce attorney with “a number of lesbian clients” who says, “The emotional issues and personal issues in gay divorce are similar to straight divorce. But the legal issues, the tax issues and complications make your mind feel like it's going to break.”

Linzer reports on issues regarding retirement savings and pensions, which she describes as “easily split for heterosexual couples divorcing” but which have to be cashed out and are “heavily taxed” for gay couples.  Linzer does note the difficulties family court judges face when it comes to child custody.

“For years, family court judges leaned toward a maternal preference when it came to custody disputes. But what to do when both parents are women, or neither is? Judges in Massachusetts have been grappling with that question since gay and lesbian couples began filing for divorce in 2004, seven months after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.”

For the record, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued a ruling in November 2003  recommending that the state legislature change the marriage law by May 17, 2004, to accommodate same-sex “marriage.” The legislature did not do so, and instead debated a constitutional amendment protecting marriage as only the union of a man and a woman. But the executive branch under then-Gov. Mitt Romney went ahead and began issuing licenses to same-sex couples after warning court clerks that they would lose their jobs if they didn't do so.  The high court itself, in another opinion, acknowledged that only the legislature, not the court nor the governor, could change the marriage law under Massachusetts Constitution.

The Post goes right along with the fiction that the court has the power to write law.  The article's operating presumption is that dissolution of gay “marriages” should be handled the same as straight marriages.  Linzer in fact makes this point in the conclusion by quoting a liberal academic.

“Andrew Koppelman, a law professor at Northwestern University, published a book in 2006, Same Sex, Different States: When Same-Sex Marriages Cross State Lines. Koppelman urged states that oppose same-sex marriage to agree at least to perform divorces. 'You have to have a way for people to get out of these things -- otherwise, you have multiple claims on the same property and no protections for people entering into new marriages. I think states that try to adopt these rules refusing to recognize the marriages just haven't thought it through.'”

Had Linzer wanted to do a balanced job of reporting, the article would have quoted recent rulings from state courts denying divorce for same-sex couples on the grounds that lawmakers have created no such right and that granting a divorce would be a back door way to legalize gay “marriage.”

It might also have included dissenting voices noting that homosexual couples who went out of their way to get to Massachusetts to get married in the first place should have to go out of their way to get divorced in the only state that recognizes their “marriage.”  The dissenting voice might have argued that the tax laws of the entire country should not be changed to accommodate the handful of same-sex couples who chose to get married in Massachusetts.

A dissenting voice would have provided balance and reason.  Clearly, the Post is more interested in advancing the gay “marriage” agenda.

Kristen Fyfe is the senior writer for the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the Media Research Center.