PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – The question of whether a family court judge can hear a same-sex divorce case is moving to the state’s highest court.

Chief Family Court Judge Jeremiah Jeremiah agreed Dec. 5 to ask the Rhode Island Supreme Court if he has jurisdiction in the case of a lesbian couple who married in Massachusetts and are seeking a divorce in Rhode Island.

The case is precedent-setting since Rhode Island law does not address same-sex marriages, and the state has not taken any action to recognize same-sex unions made in Massachusetts.

“There’s no indication that we can either hear same-sex marriages or same-sex divorces,” Jeremiah said in deciding to refer the question to the Supreme Court.

Margaret Chambers and Cassandra Ormiston of Providence had been together for about a decade when they married in Fall River, Mass., after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that same-sex couples could not be denied marriage licenses. They wed in May 2004.

The couple filed for divorce in October, citing irreconcilable differences. They need to get divorced in Rhode Island since they live in the state.

“It isn’t a situation I would choose by any means,” Ormiston, 59 and retired, said of the publicity surrounding her divorce. “Divorce is hard enough without the added burden of being the test case.”

Louis Pulner, a lawyer for Chambers, said the couple could be left with a void divorce decree if the Rhode Island Supreme Court – sometime in the future – decided he did not have jurisdiction in the case, and he asked Jeremiah to ask the Supreme Court to settle the issue now.

Ormiston’s attorney, Nancy Palmisciano, argued the judge had jurisdiction and the right to rule immediately on the divorce. Afterward, she said she understood the judge’s reasoning.

“The judge had to do what he felt was correct,” she said.

Chambers did not attend the hearing.

It was not immediately clear when the Supreme Court would take up the issue, but Pulner said he was hoping the justices would put the question on the fast track for the couple’s sake.

Janet Halley, a Harvard Law School professor who researches the issue, predicted other states will be forced to confront the question now facing Rhode Island and that the outcome would vary from state to state.

She said the couple’s ability to divorce in Rhode Island was a separate question from whether same-sex couples had the legal right to marry there.

“All you have to do with divorce is recognize that there is a marriage and then you can take jurisdiction and divorce it,” she said. “That does not change the completely separate body of law that establishes who may marry in Rhode Island.”

Even so, Michele Granda, a staff attorney with the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said allowing same-sex couples to divorce in Rhode Island could open a door for them toward obtaining the varied other legal rights and benefits that accompany marriage.

She said Rhode Island has a long history of recognizing marriages considered valid in other states, and that same-sex unions should not be an exception.

“Rhode Island has had married same-sex couples in its midst for two and a half years now and the general rule has been one of respect already,” Granda said.