I actually did see this one coming.

Two elderly woman were chatting after church one Sunday:

“Mabel, what do you think about this same-sex marriage issue?”

“Oh Harriet”, came the exasperated reply. “I’m so fed up with it I could scream. It’s all my husband ever talks about.”

“Mine too.”, the other sighed. “Same-sex marriage this, and same-sex marriage that. After 53 years with the same woman, what does he expect?”

Hey folks, are we really up for this? Looks like we’re into another round of wrangling over same-sex marriage, actually same-sex divorce. A lesbian couple from Florida and the United Kingdom, who came to Canada and got married in 2005, are now seeking a divorce here. And, surprise, surprise, their application is proving more complicated than was anticipated. Seems there’s a one year residency requirement for divorce in Canada. Who knew?

And why would you know? Though destination weddings are all the rage now, people still tend to get divorced where they live. But, if where you live doesn’t recognize your marriage, you need to go back to the place that does. Oops! It’s the law of unintended consequences. Whenever you make a change, especially a big change, some things you hadn’t considered will occur. This results in a process of ironing out kinks, which produces more changes, more consequences, and more ironing. The term for this is “government” or “the decline of civilization”.

But there’s a further complication. Some lawyers have questioned whether these marriages were actually valid in the first place. A government document in the case argues, "in order for a marriage to be legally valid under Canadian law, the parties to the marriage must satisfy both the requirements of the place where the marriage is celebrated... and the requirements of the law of domicile of the couple with regard to their legal capacity to marry one another." From what I can understand, they seem to be suggesting that there is an international convention that prohibits a country from marrying people from another jurisdiction, if they could not be married in said jurisdiction. But all this is lawyers talking to lawyers, and they will eventually sort it out, and collect some handsome fees in the process.

Another scrap to feed the voracious 24 hour news cycle. And another opportunity to listen to the opposing sides characterizing each other as degenerates and homophobes.

But it does further my conviction that it’s time for governments to consider getting out of the marriage business all together. Why do they care who’s married to whom? If there are dependency relationships: spouses, parents and children, dependent friends, whatever, they may need to acknowledge them somehow, but marriage is getting far too tangled and confused. Why not let faith communities and families worry about these things? Governments only make things more complex.