IN SOME STATES, GAYS FIGHT FOR RIGHT TO DIVORCE

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SAME_SEX_DIVORCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-12-01-04-31-33


In this Nov. 5, 2013 photo, Lauren Beth Czekala-Chatham admires her collection of dogs at her home in Hernando, Miss. Czekala-Chatham, who had a same-sex marriage in California, and lived as a couple with Dana Ann Melancon in DeSoto County, Miss., until they separated in 2010, wants to force Mississippi to recognize the same-sex marriage for the purpose of granting the divorce. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

HERNANDO, Miss. (AP) -- Lauren Beth Czekala-Chatham wants to force Mississippi, one of the America's most conservative states, to recognize her same-sex marriage. She hopes to do so by getting a divorce.

She and Dana Ann Melancon traveled from Mississippi to San Francisco to get married in 2008. The wedding was all Czekala-Chatham hoped it would be, the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, dreams for a promising future. She wrote the vows herself.

The couple bought a house together in Walls, a town of about 1,100 in northern Mississippi's DeSoto County in June 2009. But the marriage was tumultuous and, like so many others, it didn't last.

Czekala-Chatham, a 51-year-old credit analyst and mother of two teenage sons from an earlier straight marriage, filed for divorce in chancery court in September. She wants to force Mississippi to recognize the same-sex marriage for the purpose of granting the divorce.

[LuvNewcastle]

1. The Supreme Court is going to have to rule on whether states

can ignore same-sex marriages in other states relatively soon. I look forward to one of the cases to go before the Court. I think it's open and shut.

[closeupready]

2. So in other words, they want to be treated equally.

But of course, that's not provocative enough for homophobes in the mainstream media. Instead, 'see? those people are crazy; one minute, they want marriage; the next, they don't. Just ignore them.'