Lesbian violence and relationships

The judge should order them into anti violence therapy before granting any dissolution. If that doesn't happen, some other hapless lesbian will get her face beat in.

First Civil-Union Couple Parting Ways
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 15, 2005
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. -- A lesbian couple who entered into the nation's first same-sex civil union are splitting up amid allegations of violent behavior. Carolyn Conrad, 35, asked a court in October to end her relationship with Kathleen Peterson, 46.

Conrad also obtained a restraining order Wednesday against her partner, saying Peterson punched a hole in the wall during an argument and threatened to harm a friend.

"All I want to say is that the civil union was a big source of pride for me, and now it's not," Peterson said.

The two had been together for five years when they were legally joined in Brattleboro minutes after Vermont's civil-union law took effect on July 1, 2000. Two years ago, the couple were offering relationship advice on the gay-rights Web site. By the end of 2004, a total of 7,549 same-sex couples had entered civil unions in Vermont, the first state to offer gay couples nearly all the rights and privileges of marriage. There have been 78 dissolutions. Bari Shamas, a member of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, said gay relationships are prone to the same difficulties as heterosexual marriages. "There's no proof that our relationships are any better than heterosexual relationships," Shamas said.

SAME-SEX BATTERING STATISTICS

Interesting related facts:

Each year, between 50,000 and 100,000 Lesbian women and as many as 500,000 Gay men are battered. Murphy, Queer Justice: Equal Protection for Victims of Same-Sex Domestic Violence, 30 Val. U. L. Rev. 335 (1995).

Seven states define domestic violence in a way that excludes same-sex victims; 21 states have sodomy laws that may require same-sex victims to confess to a crime in order to prove they are in a domestic relationship. Barnes, It's Just a Quarrel', American Bar Association Journal, February 1998, p. 24.

By 1994, there were over 1,500 shelters and safe houses for battered women. Many of these shelters routinely deny their services to victims of same-sex battering. Murphy, Queer Justice: Equal Protection for Victims of Same-Sex Domestic Violence, 30 Val. U. L. Rev. 335 (1995).