Obstacles Same-Sex Couples Face When Moving to a Non-Recognition State

The recognition of same-sex marriage in a just a few states has created a number of legal obstacles for same-sex couples who marry in a state that recognizes their union but live in a state that does not:

• Same-sex couples must complete time-consuming and costly second parent adoptions in their non-recognition state.  
• Couples moving from a recognition state to a non-recognition states may need to review and update estate planning documents.
• Employers may face extra concerns when considering to transfer an employee from a state that recognizes same-sex marriage to one that does not. 
• The ability to obtain a same-sex divorce in a non-recognition state varies. New York and New Jersey have allowed such divorces, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania recently denied them, and the attorney general in Texas is challenging state court decisions granting same-sex divorces.  
• Arizona attorneys have succeeded in obtaining annulments of same-sex marriages on the ground that they were not legal in the first place.

Despite the obstacles, couples in states that do not recognize same-sex marriage will likely continue to travel to states that in order to get married because “[p]eople don’t decide whether to walk down the aisle or not based on the intricacies of interstate family recognition.”    David Crary, Legal limbo: a look at married same-sex couples in states that don’t recognize such unions, LA Times, May 9, 2009.