PROVIDENCE — While the state Supreme Court has said she can’t get divorced in Family Court, one of the women seeking Rhode Island’s first same-sex divorce wants the high court to weigh in on whether another state court — Superior Court — can dissolve her marriage.

Margaret R. Chambers and Cassandra B. Ormiston married in Fall River in 2004, shortly after Massachusetts became the first state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The Providence couple sought a divorce in Rhode Island Family Court in 2006. But in a December 2007 decision that drew national attention, a divided Supreme Court ruled that Family Court lacked jurisdiction to grant the divorce. The majority opinion said that under the law allowing Family Court to handle divorces, the word “marriage” means just one thing: the union of a man and a woman.

Last week, a lawyer representing Chambers filed a motion asking Superior Court to pose a different question to the Supreme Court: “May the Superior Court properly recognize, for the purpose of entertaining a divorce petition, the marriage of two persons of the same sex who were purportedly married in another state?”

That question “is one of extreme public importance, which is capable of repetition but will evade review unless decided by the Supreme Court,” the motion said.

Chambers’ lawyer, Louis M. Pulner, said in an interview that the December decision was based on the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the 1961 statute that created Family Court, but there would be no such statute to analyze in determining if the Superior Court can grant the divorce.

Superior Court, the state’s main trial court, has broader jurisdiction than Family Court, and it handled all divorces before Family Court was created, Pulner said. “So I’m going back to the court of original jurisdiction,” he said.

“How can these people not have a valid right to get a divorce somewhere in this state?” Pulner asked. “How can this state not provide a forum for a lawfully married, albeit same-sex couple to get divorced — just as for any other unhappy, heterosexual, legally married couple?”

But Ormiston doubts the Supreme Court will allow the couple to get divorced in Superior Court, and she is preparing to move to Massachusetts, according to Julie A. Lynch, a Fall River lawyer who has been retained by Ormiston to eventually file for divorce in Massachusetts.

Lawyers have said the women could get divorced if one of them moves to Massachusetts and lives there for a year.

Lynch, who is not representing Ormiston in the Superior Court matter, said the new motion to certify a question to the Supreme Court is “just delaying the inevitable.”

“[Ormiston] feels, as I do, that they will get the same answer, although I am not, obviously, on the Supreme Court,” Lynch said. “They are asking the same body of people the same question. I find it hard to believe they would answer differently.”

Lynch said the couple has been seeking a divorce for two years now and has gotten “absolutely nowhere.”

And while she is still living in Providence, Ormiston is planning to move to Massachusetts soon, Lynch said. “She’s looking at different options in Massachusetts,” she said. “The sooner the better, because she needs to get divorced.”

When the Supreme Court ruled in December, Ormiston said she did not plan to move. “This is my home,” she said at the time. “To move to Massachusetts when I own a home here is an unfair and unreasonable burden that no other citizen has to bear.”

Tuesday, Lynch agreed that it’s an unfair burden. “It’s unfortunate she has to do this, but it’s what the country is going to be facing: All these people who have gotten married in Massachusetts don’t all live in Massachusetts,” she said. “And they are faced with the same issue that my client faces, of states that won’t recognize same-sex marriages and won’t allow divorces or annulments.”

The case received national attention because it was believed to mark the first time that any of the same-sex couples married in Massachusetts had sought a divorce in another state.

In December’s 3 to 2 decision, the Supreme Court said, “It is possible that today’s members of the General Assembly might have an understanding of the term ‘marriage’ that differs from the understanding of those legislators who enacted [that law] in 1961, but our role is to interpret what was enacted and not to speculate as to what some other not-yet-enacted statute might say or mean.”

Citing definitions of marriage from 1961 dictionaries, Justice William P. Robinson III said, “There is absolutely no reason to believe that, when the act creating the Family Court became law in 1961, the legislators understood the word marriage to refer to any state other than ‘the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex.’ ”

Pulner said he is hopeful Superior Court will grant Chambers a divorce. “The Supreme Court didn’t say they were not validly married,” he said. “It’s impossible to think that these people, who are legally married, have no recourse.”

Pulner said Chambers has “absolutely no intention of packing up and moving to Massachusetts, nor should she have to. That is why I continue to pursue this litigation in the state of Rhode Island, which is where she lives.”

The motion to certify a question to the Supreme Court is scheduled to be heard before Superior Court Judge Patricia A. Hurst on May 8.

efitzpat@projo.com