PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island's Supreme Court decided last week that the state Family Court did not have proper jurisdiction to grant a divorce to two women married in Massachusetts where same-sex unions were legalized in 2004.
The decision, written by Justice William P. Robinson, III and filed on Friday, December 7, ends a heated debate that has raged in the state since the women, Margaret Chambers and Cassandra Ormiston, filed for divorce in October. The court accepted several Amicus curiae, or friend of the court, briefs during their deliberation process. Attorney General Patrick Lynch and Governor Donald Carcieri, both Catholics, filed separate briefs in favor of granting the same-sex divorce. Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, along with several other groups, filed a brief against the divorce. The bishop’s brief, filed through three lawyers — Robert A. Destro of the Columbus School of Law in D.C., Gerald C. DeMaria, Esq. of Providence and W. T. Murphy, Esq. also of Providence —?called for the court to recognize the potentially far-reaching effect their decision could have on marital and family law in Rhode Island.
In the brief, the lawyers wrote "Given the teachings of the Church regarding the nature and purpose of marriage and the complementarity of the sexes, Bishop Tobin cannot and will not remain silent." The court's decision, they continued, could "raise profound questions about human nature and fundamental questions about the nature and extent of representative democracy."
The case was much more than a simple divorce proceeding, and it's outcome had an effect felt much wider than the small circle of friends, family and estranged partners immediately involved. Debates arose across the state about whether granting a divorce is really implicitly recognizing a marriage and if it is does, would Rhode Island would have to recognize the same-sex marriages from states across the country.
The answer to these questions came, after several months, in one succinct line of the Court's decision: "It is our opinion that the ... question must be answered in the negative."
The court's reasoning goes directly to the definition of marriage created by the state's General Assembly. To determine their course of action, the justices consulted dictionaries that dated to 1961 when the statute in question became law. "In each case, the primary dictionary definition refers only to a union between a man and a woman," the decision said.
The court is appointed to uphold the law, as it was written and intended to be read when it was created. This was a particularly delicate point because according to many, the term "marriage" today has expanded to include unions between two men and two women, as in Massachusetts. "Above all, we have been guided by the principle that statutes are not to be read in a myopic manner but rather holistically and in context," the decision said. "The overall statutory scheme reflects a legislative assumption that matrimony involves two people of different genders," it continued.
In the court's decision, Justice Robinson went on to explain that the Court is charged with upholding only the laws the Legislature has created. "Ours is not a policy-making branch of government," he said.
"In our judgment, when the General Assembly accorded the Family Court the power to grant divorces... it had in mind only marriages between people of different sexes," he said. "We remain mindful of the fact that... the General Assembly meets every year. That body is free, if it so chooses, to enact divorce legislation that it might possibly deem more appropriate," Robinson continued.
Bishop Tobin hopes that same-sex divorce or so called ‘gay marriages’ are not issues at the forefront of the General Assembly agenda. "We have some other real important and very difficult issues we're dealing with in the state, such as the budget crisis, education reform and health care. I hope that they wouldn't get sidetracked from those important issues by, again, trying to change the nature of marriage," he said.
As for the two women whose own divorce was the subject of such legal scrutiny and public debate, Bishop Tobin was clear that his Amicus brief was not a personal attack on either of them.
"We certainly wish them well and hope that everything turns out well for them."
He added that the legal firestorm they found themselves in was self-created and a good indicator of what will likely come if this debate continues.
"They found themselves in a very difficult situation," the bishop said. "This is what happens when we get involved, as a society, with this kind of social experimentation. When we start to tinker with something as fundamental as matrimony this is the kind of consequence that we will find ourselves wrapped up in."
