Remember the couple that promised to get a divorce if Australia dared to ~~be decent human beings~~ legalise same-sex marriage? Well in light of the overwhelming yes vote, a lawyer has selflessly offered his services to help get the separation under way.
Canberra couple Nick and Sarah Jensen said they would be getting a divorce at the end of 2015 if the government made marriage even a little gay – a hilariously benevolent understanding of how quickly this government puts anything into legislation.
“Our view is that marriage is a fundamental order of creation. Part of God’s human history. Marriage is the union of a man and a woman before a community in the sight of God,” Nick wrote in Canberra CityNews at the time.
“And marriage of any couple is important to God regardless of whether that couple recognises God’s involvement or authority in it,”
“If our federal parliament votes to change the timeless and organic definition of marriage later on this year, it will have moved against the fundamental and foundational building block of Australian society and, indeed, human culture everywhere.”
Welcome good guy Michael Tiyce, a family lawyer who’s offering his services pro bono to help the couple kickstart the divorce.
The main problem for the Jensens, besides living in an electorate that saw 74 per cent of constituents vote yes, is that they don’t want to stop living together.
Tiyce explained the couple would need to live apart for a year and prove their relationship had “broken down irretrievably” before even filing for divorce.
Michael Tiyce
“Continuing to present as husband and wife to the world would, in my opinion, make it impossible for them to establish that their relationship was at an end,” he told news.com.au.
“This is a situation known as ‘wedlock’ which is mostly experienced currently by gay couples who married overseas but cannot always divorce upon separation in Australia because their marriage post-2004 is not recognised here.”
Earlier this week, the Jensens told Daily Mail they “just need to see the legislation and if it all goes that way.”
“Then we know what situation we’re in and what we’re going to do.”
It’s unclear what God hates more – divorce or the gay getting married – so the Jensens must be facing a real moral dilemma at this point.
