Court rules against lesbian in homosexual divorce case: Oklahoma won’t recognize ‘marriage’
An effort by two lesbian women to overturn Oklahoma’s legal ban on homosexual marriage has been denied for a second time in a Tulsa courtroom.
The bizarre case started when two women, reportedly “married” in Canada filed for divorce in Tulsa. The divorce document, which had initials instead of first names, didn’t show that the two parties were both women.
Cait O’Darling used the name “C. O’Darling” in filing for the divorce from “S. O’Darling,” who was later identified as Stephanie Meissen. O’Darling claims they were “married” in Toronto in 2003.
A judge unwittingly granted the divorce, thinking it was a man and a woman. He later vacated that decision and the two women appealed.
Had the divorce been granted under Oklahoma law, it would have been tacit recognition of homosexual “marriage.” Radical homosexual groups around the country were hoping for a legal precedent to develop around the case in Oklahoma. It’s also being tried in other states.
Last week, Special District Judge Robert Perugino said Oklahoma defines marriage “as the union of one man and one woman” and said he could not grant a request for a “dissolution of marriage” between two women.
A lawyer for O’Darling said they might appeal the case to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
“Oklahomans spoke very clearly about their support for traditional marriage, and today their voice was upheld with the dismissal of the O’Darling case,” said House Speaker Chris Benge, R-Tulsa. “Our interest in this case has been to ensure that the will of the people is carried out, and today they can feel confident that pro-family values are protected in our state.”
In July, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that then-Special District Judge Michael Zacharias was correct in vacating the divorce in 2006. He has since resigned from the bench. The court did agree that O’Darling could have a hearing in Tulsa district court.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court did not comment on the constitutional issue of homosexual marriage.
In its ruling, the Oklahoma Supreme Court wrote, “Disclosure that the purported marriage was between two women was not made, and it was not until contacted by the local paper that the trial court discovered this information…. The court has power to vacate when the successful party acted improperly to obtain the decree or if there was irregularity in obtaining the decree. Such actions are shown in the facts in the present matter.”
In 2004, Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly passed the Defense of Marriage Act, a constitutional amendment that prohibits homosexual marriage and bans recognition of homosexual marriages from other states.
At issue on Nov. 25 was why O’Darling was seeking a “divorce” several months after Griffith had legally married a man, and why O’Darling claims to have “married” Griffith in Canada several months before same-sex “marriage” became legal in that country.
“The government cannot issue a divorce for a ‘marriage’ it doesn’t recognize,” said Austin R. Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. “The Oklahoma Supreme Court was right to determine that the lower court acted within its authority when it vacated the divorce decree it erroneously issued in this case because it didn’t know the parties involved were of the same sex.”
Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case in October 2007 on behalf of Cargill, arguing that the state cannot grant a divorce to two people when the state does not even recognize them as married.
“The opponents of marriage aren’t merely trying to redefine marriage; they’re trying to eliminate marriage. Recognizing a same-sex ‘divorce’ would mean recognizing a ‘marriage’ that doesn’t exist under an Oklahoma law that voters passed by a margin of more than 3-to-1,” said Nimocks. “The high court was right to determine that the lower court acted within its authority when it vacated the divorce decree it erroneously issued because it didn’t know the parties involved were of the same sex.”
A fact sheet is available at www.telladf.org.