Massachusetts Gay Marriage Pioneers to Divorce
Massachusetts Gay Marriage Pioneers to Divorce
Julie and Hillary Goodridge led civil rights battle in 2004
The lesbian couple who led the fight for gay marriage in Massachusetts in 2004 obviously took some of their fighting spirit into the marital home. Julie and Hilary Goodridge have now filed for divorce.
The unpairing isn't a complete surprise since they have been separated since 2006.
Julie and Hilary became feminist icons for gay marriage because of what seemed like rock-solid stability. Together for two decades, loving mothers to daughter Ann, now 13, and financially stable, the couple helped sway public opinion to the civil rights cause. At the time, as the Boston Globe characterized it, they portrayed themselves as any other couple.
Well now in fact they are. Except they got divorced in less time than the national average which is 7.8 years.
According to the Globe, since gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in May 2004, about 7,300 same-sex couples have obtained licenses.There have been about 45 divorces; the number of separations has not been reported.
"Unfortunately, lesbian and gay couples break up just as heterosexual couples," said Joyce Kauffman, a Cambridge lawyer who specializes in gay and lesbian family law. "It's a fact of life. There are stresses and strains on all of us. And sometimes relationships can't beat that stress. It happens to gay people just as well straight people."
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