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GLAAD President on His Divorce


Jarrett Barrios X390 (COURTESYGLAAD) | ADVOCATE.COM

Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation president Jarrett Barrios says that while the main focus on gay rights may be marriage, it also includes the right to divorce.

Barrios, who was once a Massachusetts state legislator, said he lobbied hard to get the state to recognize marriage equality. When it did, he and his partner of 11 years went to the altar in 2004. However, Barrios and his husband separated last year, and he has been enduring a tough divorce.

"Just as gay and lesbian couples share the joys of marriage, we will share the pain of divorce, something for which we have no template," he wrote in theBoston GlobeThursday. "Divorce plumbs impossible depths of sadness. It involves separating the dishes and the books and all the other things you acquired back when you both still felt the lightness of love, asserting to a judge at a public trial that, yes, your marriage has broken down irretrievably, and telling your parents whose marriage of 47 years hangs heavy over your anemic explanations to them."

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Reader Comments
  • Name: Sancho
    Date posted: 9/3/2010 5:54:01 PM
    Hometown: Santa Fe

    Comment:

    Barrios lost me in the Op-Ed piece the minute he referenced "Eat, Pray, Love" as his jumping-off point for discussing his divorce. If the most meaningful parallel you can find for your life's struggles is Julia Roberts's latest summertime search for love (oh, the suspense! will Julia meet anyone who might find her attractive?! will she learn to love and trust again?!), you should be keeping those thoughts to yourself (like the self-pitying poetry you wrote when you were 13) rather than publishing them in the Boston Globe.

  • Name: Greg
    Date posted: 9/3/2010 11:41:13 AM
    Hometown: Providence RI

    Comment:

    We thought only lesbians had tough divorces. What do guys fight about, antiques and movie posters?

  • Name: David Jarnes
    Date posted: 9/3/2010 8:10:03 AM
    Hometown: Springfield, Ma.

    Comment:

    Prior to gay marriage being legal in Massachusetts, I testified before a legislative panel hearing arguements pro and con for gay marriage. I pointed out to the legislators that since most of them are lawyers, gay marriage would open up a whole new clientele to them. Since half of all straight marriages end in divorce, there is no reason to believe that the same would not hold true with gay marriages. This drew a chuckle from the panel. I wish Mr. Barrios well in the future. When he was an openly gay state senator he was an eloquent spokesman for GLBT issues as well as many other important issues to his constiutuency.

  • Name: Neil
    Date posted: 9/3/2010 12:40:24 AM
    Hometown: Ramseur

    Comment:

    We wish Jarrett and his ex the best

  • Name: jlynn
    Date posted: 9/2/2010 11:26:07 PM
    Hometown: arcata ca

    Comment:

    We all appreciate your honesty and vulnerability here. Sometimes the focus on visibility, taking a stand for our rights, courage to be unconventional, adds additional strain on what is already challenging, creating and maintaining a healthy warm respectful vital intimate loving relationship. I applaud your honesty and courage regarding your personal situation. We in the LGBT community have no secret claim on successful guaranteed tips for this situation. Blessings and support to you personally and politically; your blunt honesty about the challenge of maintaining our loving relationships, even after we are granted legal rights, is important and reassuring to those of us who , apologetically, have not created our ideal situation despite the spotlight and permission of these times.

  • Name: Norman
    Date posted: 9/2/2010 9:56:50 PM
    Hometown: Oceano, CA

    Comment:

    I remember, when many Gays said, "Why ruin a good thing with marriage?" Personally, I don't believe the state has any right to define marriage which is a church sacrament. The state should only be allowed to issue Licenses of Domestic Partnership. The state has a vested interest in the children regardless of the parent's sexual orientation. I believe in draconian measures, including sterilization of child molesters and abusers and placement on a list of persons who cannot adopt or parent. My best to both parties, I am certain they entered their relationship with great expectations and love. As with most couples, feelings of frustration will never change the fact that at some level love still exists among the many disparate feelings.

  • Name: johann of OC
    Date posted: 9/2/2010 8:19:58 PM
    Hometown: Orange County Ca

    Comment:

    Good Grief....where's my tabloid.



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