This past June, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges, which made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, celebrated its ninth anniversary. As same-sex marriage has been legal for anywhere from roughly two decades (Massachusetts) to just shy of one decade (nationwide,) research has begun showing some important trends related to same-sex couples, marriage, and divorce. Divorce presents unique challenges to same-sex couples so, if you have made the difficult decision to divorce, having a skilled Maryland divorce lawyer by your side can be essential to getting a fair and appropriate outcome.
According to Maryland Matters, same-sex marriage experienced a massive uptick in the years after the 2015 Supreme Court ruling. Based on estimates from the Census Bureau, Maryland had “about 4,400 same-sex married couples… in 2012, the year before the state made it legal.” By 2015, that number had more than doubled to 10,388. After 2015, the number of married gay and lesbian couples has risen to approximately 16,500.
As the years have passed, researchers have studied the patterns of same-sex marriage and divorce. Researchers at UCLA, as well as their counterparts in Denmark, both found that the rate of same-sex divorce is lower than the rate among their “straight” counterparts.