Yesterday, the Wyoming Supreme Court “unanimously reversed a district court ruling, allowing a same-sex couple to obtain a divorce in Niobrara County.” The ruling means that the “state’s courts have jurisdiction to grant the divorce of a same-sex couple who were legally married in Canada.”

The opinion lays out three different types of marriages: legal marriages between a man and a woman that are recognized by the state of Wyoming, marriages that the state does not recognize but are common in other states (like common law marriages) and a third very low form of marriage that is “deemed contrary to the law of nature.” Significantly, the Court found that same-sex marriage fit into the second category and likened them to common law marriages which, while not recognized by the state, can be dissolved within it:

Under common law, this rule of validation, otherwise known as the rule of lex loci celebrationis, is subject to “certain recognized exceptions, namely, marriages which are deemed contrary to the law of nature as generally recognized in Christian countries, such as polygamous and incestuous marriages, and those which the legislature of the state has declared shall not be allowed any validity, because contrary to the policy of its laws.” Hoagland, 27 Wyo. at 180-81, 193 P. at 843-44 (Wyo. 1920).

The policy exception is necessarily narrow, lest it swallow the rule. It is not enough that a marriage would not be valid if solemnized in Wyoming. Common law marriages provide a good example. [...] Likewise, recognizing a valid foreign same-sex marriage for the limited purpose of entertaining a divorce proceeding does not lessen the law or policy in Wyoming against allowing the creation of same-sex marriages.

The Court does stress that the opinion is not an endorsement of same-sex marriage — “The question of recognition of such same-sex marriages for any other reason, being not properly before us, is left for another day,” it says — but it’s certainly moving the state in the right direction.

Wyoming state law defines marriage as a union between a man and woman, but recognizes marriages performed in other states.

Yesterday, the Wyoming House advanced legislation prohibiting the state from recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages. The measure “passed on its first hearing with 34 votes,” but will not move to the Senate until it is approved by the House two additional times.

The Billings Gazette reports that most lawmakers attempted to portray the measure as a simple clarification of current law — the state does recognize marriages performed elsewhere and does not specifically exclude same-sex marriages — but state Rep. Frank Peasley (R) went a step further saying that conservatives were fighting against “government intrusion” into marriage, likening the expansion of marriage to smoking bans:

“I think all this is, is an outpost in culture that says, ‘Listen, I feel like you’re destroying everything else that I have,’” Peasley said. “You’ve gotten involved in the raising of my children, the way I discipline them, the way I feed them, whether or not I can smoke in the car, whether or not I have them properly equipped; you’ve just gotten into my life so much, let’s just let me define the relationship I’m in, OK?”

“Let’s just back up a little bit and see what’s happened,” Peasley said. “And maybe recognize this as that last outpost in our culture where a group of people has said, ‘please, please, let us be what we’ve always been.’ You can’t even define a family anymore.

The legislature is also “considering a Senate bill that proposes a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage,” but that measure may have a hard time garnering the needed 2/3 majority to pass in the House. Meanwhile, Rep. Cathy Connolly, a Democrat who is a lesbian and a supporter of marriage equality, will introduce two bills to legalize same-sex marriages and establish civil unions.

For a complete run down of the progress of marriage initiatives in the states, read our State Marriage Watch. (H/T: On Top Magazine)