By RICHARD HACK / TALLAHASSEE, Fl. — Just weeks after a federal court denied Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s request to extend a stay on same-sex marriages in the state, she has tossed what is her final tool in an on-going effort to prevent gay unions from becoming legal in Florida that were set to begin on January 6.
In a request submitted late Monday, Bondi asked that the U.S. Supreme Court to intercede and prevent marriages from taking place in the Sunshine State. Bondi’s spokeswoman Jennifer Meale officially stated that Bondi’s move is an attempt to “reduce confusion.”
“The recent decision denying a longer stay has created statewide confusion about the effect of the injunction, which is directed to only one of Florida’s sixty-seven clerks of court,” she wrote in a press release.
“In a continuation of the effort to maintain uniformity and order throughout Florida until final resolution of the numerous challenges to the voter-approved constitutional amendment on marriage, the Attorney General’s Office filed with the United States Supreme Court an application to extend the stay.”
In the 70-page filing, Bondi’s lawyers wrote that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ denial of an extension Dec. 3 “has created statewide confusion” and that lifting the stay could lead to county clerks throughout the state issuing marriage licenses to gay couples although only one Florida county — Washington — was a party to the federal lawsuit.
“The constitutional issue is a serious one, and it deserves appellate review before the injunctions (against the gay-marriage ban) should become effective,” Florida Solicitor General Allen Winsor wrote.
Unfortunately for Bondi, her last gasp is unlikely to succeed.
Not only is she on the wrong side of history in her continuing legal footwork, previous efforts to do exactly the same thing in the conservative states of Kansas, Idaho, Alaska and South Carolina have failed. James Esseks, director of the LGBT Project for the ACLU in New York and one of the attorneys in the Florida case, said that same-sex couples are marrying in all four of those states.
it’s possible Justice Thomas would accept Bondi’s stay request, but more likely that he would refer it to the full court. Esseks noted that since last October, when the Supreme Court denied hearing appeals to court rulings allowing same-sex marriages in Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin and Indiana, justices have denied similar state requests for stays four times.
“It denied stays by Idaho, Kansas, Alaska and South Carolina,” Esseks said. “Same-sex couples are marrying in all four of those states.”
Responding to last Monday’s filing, ACLU of Florida LGBT rights attorney Daniel Tilley stated:
“It is unsurprising, given how hard Governor Scott, his appointees, and Attorney General Bondi have fought to keep loving and committed couples from getting married and having their marriages recognized in Florida, that they would keep up this dead-end fight. But with just weeks until the ruling is scheduled to go into effect, it is disappointing.
“Florida families have waited long enough for the end of a ban that a federal court has declared unconstitutional. Since October, the Supreme Court has refused all requests to stay rulings striking down the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage in other states. We are hopeful they will do the same here so that loving couples and their children can get the protections for which they have waited so long.”
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