Hillary and Julie Goodridge were the first couple to legally wed in Massachusetts and , following in the same path of more than 50% of straight marriages, there’s has come to an end. The couple filed for divorce and will share custody of their 12-year-old daughter, Annie. This’ll probably give some conservatives an undeserved “I told you so” moment, but mostly we feel bad that things didn’t work out for the couple.
The Boston-Herald reports that the couple seem set on their decision:
“I wish I could talk them into staying together, but I don’t see how. They had a great thing going. I love Julie, and I always will,” said Hillary’s mom, Ann Kiernan Smith, 82, of Florida, who believed the couple would outlast their critics.
“I guess because Julie and Hillary made headlines, people will pick on it,” Smith lamented of the breakup. “I don’t think sex has anything to do with it. If (marriage) is what Hillary wanted, I was proud of her.”
The Goodridges’ landmark lawsuit famously persuaded the state Supreme Judicial Court in 2003 to make Massachusetts the first state to recognize same-sex marriage. Last week, they became one of 168 couples to file for divorce in Suffolk County in January.
Neither Hillary Goodridge, 52, director of the Unitarian Universalist Funding Program, nor Julie Goodridge, 51, an investment adviser, responded to requests for comment yesterday. The couple wed in May 2004 after nearly two decades together.
A source close to both women said Hillary enjoyed the limelight of being a pioneering gay activist and was always interested in trying new things, while Julie was more reserved.
Nate
Really? They couldn’t stick it out? Wow. Quitters. Here’s an idea: if the landmark gay-marriage case is named after you, then don’t get a divorce. This is worse than Roe turning all fundie to save teh babies.
TylerOakley
@Nate I completely disagree. Just like they earned the right to marry, they earned all the rights that came with it… including divorce. Why stay together if they no longer are in love?
Nate
Why get married if you are going to fall out of love in 2.5 years? What a joke.
And of course they earned the right…I’m just saying they shouldn’t have exercised it.
TylerOakley
You can’t predict what will happen and unless you know the complexities of their relationship, I don’t think any of us are justified in judging a couple’s relationship.
candice
Really this just proves their marriage is the same as every other straight couple in the country who call it quits. Yay equality.
RB
What a shame. They live in my neighborhood and I have seen them around a lot — but not together. Oh, well.
Alexa
Well, Nate, I’m sure if they had been allowed to they would have gotten married much earlier. Would you be happy if they had been married twenty years and then called it quits? Opposite sex couples get divorced every day, nobody plans for it to happen or expects it will happen to them. Same sex couples are going to be no different.
Nate
Right, opposite couples and same sex couples will both get divorced. I believe my comment was restricted to THE couple who was the standard-bearer for the Goodridge case. Nothing against divorce, just think it’s kind of silly to get divorced so quickly when your marriage was such an important landmark.
Charles J. Mueller
@Nate:
Nate…they are human beings with feelings and emotions, not statues in a park serving as a “landmark” as you so coldly put it.
They were together for two decades before they ever got married, so they didn’t just “fall out of love after only 2.5 years”. Here’s a copy and paste from the editorial in case you missed it.
“The couple wed in May 2004 after nearly two decades together.”
You sound like you think that this couple “owes” us something.
They don’t owe us a thing. So, get over it already.
bobp
Way to go, ladies.
grammar king
there’s? really?