Nick & Sarah Jensen: Consider Yourselves Served

Oh the karma of it all …

Michael Tiyce, a Sydney lawyer, has offered his pro-bono support to Nick and Sarah Jensen, a straight couple who said they would divorce if Australia legislated for same-sex marriage.

And since earlier this month the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced 62% of Australians voted ‘Yes’ in the same-sex marriage postal survey, Tiyce wants to help Nick and Sarah keep their promise to Australia, “because, quite simply, they are going to need it”.

Ironically enough, the state with the highest Yes vote was the Australian Capital Territory where three out of four of the Jensen’s neighbors voted in favor of same-sex marriage.

Ouch.

The Jensen’s made a nationwide stir in 2015, when Nick wrote an Op-ed for the Canberra City News vowing that he and the missus would dissolve their marriage, despite being very much in love, if gay couples were also allowed to wed:

“My wife and I just celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary but later this year we may be getting a divorce. My wife and I, as a matter of conscience, refuse to recognise the government’s regulation of marriage if its definition includes the solemnisation of same sex couples.”

Yet, despite promising to end his marriage, Nick vowed to stay with his, um, ex-wife[?]:

“After our divorce, we’ll continue to live together, hopefully for another 50 years. And, God willing, we’ll have more children. We’ll also continue to refer to each other as ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ and consider ourselves married by the Church and before God.”

Tiyce is only too happy to help with the Jensen’s divorce, though he’s quit to remind the couple that “Jesus hated divorce, remember”:

“My firm does quite a bit of pro bono work in family law each year in the gay, lesbian and trans community. I thought offering assistance to Nick and Sarah would be an excellent way of reaching out across communities with my family law expertise, because quite simply they are going to need it.”

But in Australia, divorce is only acceptable under certain conditions, such as saying the marriage has broken down irretrievably, which means there “is no reasonable chance that the parties will resume their marital relationship”:

“As I understand the position taken by Nick and Sarah, they intend to divorce, but still remain together and have more children. That makes things a bit tricky as they will be unable to establish the consortium vitae has ended. Continuing to present as husband and wife to the world would, in my opinion, make it impossible for them to establish that their relationship was at an end. … The application may be doomed to failure but it is worth giving it a burl.”

In addition, the Jensen’s would need to be separated, and living apart, for a continuous period of 12 months before filing for divorce, so, yeah, there’s that. But maybe the Jensen’s aren’t going to keep their promise, telling the media after the Yes vote how, or even if, the divorce plans were progressing. He simply said “we just need to see the legislation and if it all goes that way. Then we know what situation we’re in and what we’re going to do.”

Oh Nick and Sarah, just admit that you lied; you never intended to divorce if The Gays were allowed to marry, it was just another way to spread hate and lies and misinformation. But, if you want to divorce, do so, and raise your bastard children, born outside holy wedlock, in the eyes of the God to whom you profess your love; live in sex; break all the rules about having sex outside of marriage.

Yeah, your God will really like that.

Still, Nick denies he was a sore loser on the issue of marriage:

“This decision is not due to any dislike of any people, same sex attracted or not, but simply around how we understand marriage as defined by God.”

Um, Nick, I don’t think God defined marriage as getting married, staying married, having children, then divorcing because other folks earn the rights to marriage, and then living in sin with your ex-wife and having more children.

You might wanna pray on that.

News.com.au