2007
Marriage protected, Rhode Island Supreme Court says no to same-sex couple seeking a “divorceâ€
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ADF attorneys filed friend-of-the-court briefs in August explaining to R.I. high court that divorce is not legally possible for non-marital relationships
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — In a case involving two women seeking to “divorce” one another, the Supreme Court of Rhode Island ruled Friday that the term “marriage,” according to state law, means a union between one man and one woman. Therefore, the lower state court did not have the authority to consider a petition for a same-sex “divorce.”
“Marriage has always been one man and one woman in Rhode Island. Everything else is counterfeit. The Supreme Court of Rhode Island ruled correctly,” said Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel Austin R. Nimocks. In August, ADF attorneys filed three friend-of-the-court briefs explaining that divorce is not legally possible for non-marital relationships (www.telladf.org/news/story.aspx?cid=4197).
The two women in the case, Margaret Chambers and Cassandra Ormiston, both residents of Rhode Island, traveled across the state to Massachusetts in May 2004 and obtained a “marriage” license there. The couple subsequently petitioned the Rhode Island courts for a “divorce.”
The Supreme Court of Rhode Island expressed in its ruling, “The role of the judicial branch is not to make policy, but simply to determine the legislative intent as expressed in the statues enacted by the General Assembly.”
“Not only is today’s ruling a victory for marriage, it’s also a tremendous step forward against judicial activism,” said Nimocks. “Rhode Island’s highest court acknowledged that it is the role of the legislature, and not the judiciary, to establish public policy.”
A full copy of the ruling issued by the Supreme Court of Rhode Island in the case Chambers v. Ormiston can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/ChambersRuling.pdf.
ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
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