A married heterosexual couple in Tennessee is not allowed to get a divorce because the Supreme Court ruled that gays and lesbians can now legally wed. That's basically what a local judge said when he denied what should have been a straightforward divorce to a couple in their 60s.
The couple, according to the Times Free Press, are Thomas Bumgardner, who is 65, and his wife, Pamela, who is 61. They've been married since November 2002 and don't have kids. The reason for their divorce — for which they filed in September 2014 — is "irreconcilable differences."
But Hamilton County Chancellor Jeffrey Atherton, who heard their case last month and issued his ruling Monday, denied the couple's divorce, saying the Supreme Court's decision on gay marriage means only it can decide "what is not a marriage, or better stated, when a marriage is no longer a marriage."
"The conclusion reached by this Court is that Tennesseans have been deemed by the U.S. Supreme Court to be incompetent to define and address such keystone/central institutions such as marriage, and, thereby, at minimum, contested divorces," he wrote in his decision.
This was among several reasons he wouldn't allow the divorce, the Times Free Press reported. Ultimately, Atherton, who heard from seven witnesses and examined 77 exhibits, said the couple's marriage is not "irretrievably broken."
They can file for divorce again, except now they have to give a different reason.
Beyond denying a couple the right to divorce, however, he also dropped a homophobic slur in his ruling, according to the legal website Above The Law, by referring to the government's policies as being carried out "with its iron fist and limp wrist."
Regina Lambert, one of the attorneys who represented Tennessee plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case, told theGuardian that Atherton's argument is more or less nonsense.
"I think the chancellor was really making more of a statement of his personal feelings as opposed to having a legitimate concern over the divorce laws," she said. "It's unnecessary grandstanding by the judge so he can express disapproval."
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