Subject: ROBERTS' RULES:DP
From: "Shelly Roberts" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 13:28:38 +0000

ROBERTS' RULES

by 

Shelly Roberts

TILL GOVERNMENT DO US PART

Here's how hard it is to get a gay divorce in Broward County, Florida:

I swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that:

1. The Domestic Partnership  between (blank)  (under the line it says:
Former Domestic Partner) comma (blank) (under the line it says:
Certificate Number) comma and the undersigned is hereby terminated
comma and 

2. On (blank) (date)  comma I mailed my former partner a copy at
his/her (or both in the case of pre-op TGs?) last known address comma
which is (big blank) (address to which copy was mailed ) 

I swear and affirm under penalty of perjury under the laws of the
State of Florida that the above statements are true and correct.

Executed on: (blank) comma (blank) (I think they mean when you filed
the form, not when you shot your so-and-so ex-honey to finally get the
whole damn dead thing over with and again take charge of the remote
control and your life without asking anyone else's permission.)

The rest is half-page simple. At: Signed: Address: Phone: Etc: And a
place for a notary to feel important.

Then at the bottom, in relatively small letters, the final document
declaration and decree: Termination of Declaration of Domestic
Partnership. (I don't want to pick nits here, well, yes, actually I
do, I just want to seem funnier than most naggers and whiners when I
do it, but - when you get a decree of divorce from the great State of
Anywhere, does it say "Termination of DECLARATION of marriage"? Or do
you just divide up the kids, the CDs, and get a divorce decree? Well,
maybe that's for later. I haven't gotten you partnered yet. Just
terminated. )

Oh, yeah, its form number 404-62 for the domestically disinclined.

Actually, that's how hard it WILL BE to declare your gay independence
in Broward County AFTER July 12th, 1999. The day it's also legal to
declare, for the purposes of insurance companies, and, well, maybe one
of your mothers, that you have each been domesticated. Sanctioned, if
not sanctified.

Are we happy for the Browardians?

Well, having been one for nearly a decade before I disembarked both
the County and the couple, having been without benefit of liturgy, the
whole thing leaves me extremely whelmed. Not that I don't applaud the
good folks who caused it. Not that I couldn't name them by names, and
tell you what kind of wall paper is in their guest bathrooms, right
Robin? Huh, Dean? And kudos and bravae for the great work. It was a
great long fight, and it's always nice to find friends emerging
victorious. 

But - for twenty bucks now in Broward County, Florida, you can declare
your undying, what? Domesticity?

I never found more than half of any given couple (and, of course, our
lawyers) who cared much. I'm not going to repeat all the silly sermons
the straights sang during the fight for DOMA. There was, as far as I'm
concerned, NO defense of marriage in the first place. When your
lose-win average is six out of ten, you can't claim much bragging
right. 

Oh, sure, domestic partnership declarations are a good way to keep the
premiums, um, uh, well, straight on the BMW and Grand Cherokee, at
least for the insurers. But  I'm still having trouble understanding
why we picked up this particular fight in the first place. I say
picked UP rather than picked because it was never ours. We were hoping
for protection from getting tied to a fence rail and left out in
blizzards. We wanted the universe changed enough so that dyke was a
compliment. 

I'd hoped we'd wait until they got it fixed. Guess not. 

Not that I'm against pairing. I have committed it multiply. And on
both sides of the wire. All I can tell you is that the split from
Whatsisname cost me six hundred bucks for the lawyers in 1969. And the
split in Broward County from Whatsername, without benefit of anything
writ, cost me several thousand for the lawyers, not to mention losing
the couch, the dog, and the coffee grinder.  

Don't misunderstand me, I personally want to thank every single glbt
attorney who has ever stood in our defense, and won. Winning is good.
And feels great. We've always needed victories. Even on the silly ones
I disagree with, even though the battle was a monumental uphill climb.
Politics and law are our last bastion, the final holdout, the
ultimate, encoded reflection of what we've managed to change in the
real world.

It's just that my Visa bill still reflects the domestic redistribution
of wealth in Broward County, Florida, and I doubt that any official
grudging declaration would have changed that. Probably just made it
worse. Oh, now I get it. Now that it's a county-wide custom, I bet the
attorney fees for the gay-breaks will go up to equal everyone else's.

Is that a conflict of interest? Or, like the accounting in my
checkbook, just irreconcilable differences?

-------------------------

(C) 1999. Shelly Roberts. All rights reserved. Must be reprinted only
in its entirety with permission.

Shelly Roberts, an internationally syndicated columnist, journalist,
and author of the 1999 Roberts' Rules of Lesbian Living Daily Calendar
(Spinsters Ink.).