NPR’s “All Things Considered” had a piece tonight about the Gay Marriage battle in Washington, D.C.,  where the city council passed a measure that would allow the city to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. Supporters are hoping the council will pass new legislation allowing same-sex marriage in the district.

Meanwhile, somewhat incongruously, in the Weddings/Celebration section of today’s NYTimes there’s a discussion of same sex divorce. Not all that long ago a same sex marriage was tricky to get out of. But the times they are a-changing:

New York does not allow same-sex couples to marry within its jurisdiction, but its governor has issued an order requiring state agencies to recognize such marriages legally performed elsewhere. (Also, on May 12, the State Assembly passed a bill to legalize it and the bill now awaits its fate in the State Senate.)

But last October, in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Justice Rosalyn H. Richter granted C. C. and C. M. a divorce (using their initials in the documents), making it the first such dissolution of a same-sex marriage in New York of a couple who had married in the United States. The decision recognized that the marriage was valid in Massachusetts, where it was contracted.

The divorce came on the heels of a decision in February 2008, by Acting Supreme Court Justice Laura E. Drager in Manhattan, allowing the divorce proceedings in another same-sex case to move forward, requiring the recognition of a same-sex marriage that had taken place in Canada. There has since been a trickle of gay divorces in New York.

How about elsewhere?

Other states that don’t allow gay marriage have been struggling with whether to grant divorces for marriages performed in states that do. In February, a judge in New Jersey ruled that gay marriages performed outside the state are recognized in New Jersey in the case of divorce. But courts in Rhode Island and judges in Oklahoma and Texas have refused to grant divorces. And last month, the California Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on gay marriage, but the ruling said the 18,000 existing marriages of same-sex couples can stand.

What’s the message?

That same-sex couples can’t marry but can divorce is “an incredibly negative destabilizing message,” Dr. Greenan said, that “somehow you don’t have equal rights.” He added, “Inadvertently the message is ‘We’ll help you to separate; we just won’t help you to get together.’ ”

When the time comes, I’ll be interested to compare hetero/homo divorce statistics.