They won't let us marry, but will they let us divorce?

Two men married in Massachusetts now live in Texas. They want to break up, but the Attorney General, Abbot, says you can't dissolve a marriage that the state doesn't recognize. From Prop8trialtracker, which has become an excellent source of news about marriage equality overall:

It’s a strange situation that this puts the couple, and the state, in. This couple simply wants to break up. And while the state might not recognize the relationship, they do need the courts to wrap up a few details. The State of Massachusetts cannot, under rules of jurisdiction, step in to the case. The couple must seek an end in the state in which they reside. However, that state, Texas, wants nothing to do with the divorce.

In effect, Abbott is forcing this gay couple to remain married. The tortured logic of this case is just a sign of the importance of not only winning recognition state by state, but we must also win at the federal level. And ultimately, that’s going to take a court ruling. Whether it’s the Prop 8 case in a few years, or if it takes a while longer. We need the entire nation to recognize our marriages, or they are still second-class imitations. Without that, we can’t travel with the same protections, we can’t move to new states with the same protections, heck, we can’t even break up with the same protections.