A new law signed by Governor Jerry Brown not only allows gay divorce; it allows it for couples married in California who have moved to states where gay divorce is unavailable. Until now, jurisdiction for divorce has been based only on the spouses' residences at the time of the divorce, regardless of where they got married, which meant that same-sex couples could be left with no state that is willing and able to divorce them.
This new California rule is actually more compatible with the contractual nature of marriage. As a specialist in interstate and international family law working in a cosmopolitan area, I already get calls and e-mails from people who assume that they need to get divorced in the same place where they married even though they no longer live here (including expats and diplomats who cannot get divorced anywhere else, because many countries are reluctant to divorce foreigners, and displaced Lousianans who had no idea that their Covenant Marriages mean nothing across state lines). After all, contracts generally -- even prenups -- are governed by the law of the place they were made. The rule, unique to family law, that your case is governed by the law of the state where one party goes and files, does not sit well with a lot of people. Nor should it. That rule is actually at the root of the centuries-old American problem of "migratory divorce" -- people getting out of a marriage by running to a state with easier divorce laws -- which made it mostly futile for states to restrict divorce, which in turn led to practically universal quickie no-fault divorce laws. Likewise, it inspired and facilitated interstate and international child abductions -- taking a child to another state or country to obtain a favorable custody ruling -- which it has taken my entire lifetime to bring under control with several Uniform Laws and treaties, beginning with the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act in 1968.
I hope this new California law rings in a new openness towards treating marriages as contracts when deciding when, where and how they can be dissolved.