With divorce rates on the rise throughout the world, it appears that the dissolution of same sex marriages, or gay divorce, isn’t anywhere near as common. In fact, less than 1% of same sex marriages actually end in divorce.

Gay website PinkNews.com discovered that fewer than 250 gay marriages actually ended in divorce in the UK. In the two years between 2005 and 2007, 24,629 gay weddings took place in the UK. Since December 2006, when couples have been able to petition for divorce, only 245 couples have filed for a dissolution of their union.

Of those 245, just 108 have been so far ended in dissolution, with three ending in separation and one declared null and void. In June this year Matt Lucas (of Little Britain fame) became the first celebrity gay divorcee when he ended his marriage with Kevin McGee, just two years after their wedding.

Stonewall’s Ben Summerskill stated:

This is a small number and it confirms that many people entering into civil partnerships take it very seriously indeed.

Certainly there is no credible evidence that lesbian and gay people do not live in stable relationships.

We hope the Office for National Statistics will include questions to build on this in the next census.

The difference between gay marriages and heterosexual marriages in terms of divorce rates is quite staggering. 2005 divorce rates suggest that 45% of marriages will actually end in divorce, and half of them before the tenth anniversary of the marriage.

In 2006 in the UK there were 275,140 weddings in England and Wales, and 132,562 divorces.