STATEMENT: U.S. SUPREME COURT DECISION NOT TO REVIEW MARRIAGE RULINGS

TAKE ACTION: 

Send Governor Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi an email urging them to stop the appeals and put an end to Florida’s ban on marriage for loving same-sex couples across the state. To send an email, click here.

STATEMENT:

Today’s action sends a clear message to Florida Governor Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi: Respect the ruling of 5 Florida judges and end marriage discrimination now.

In light of today’s action, we call on Pam Bondi and Rick Scott to immediately announce they will now drop their senseless appeals. There is no reason to wait another day or waste another dollar crusading to keep discrimination in place in Florida.

For Florida, this ruling eliminates the last refuge for Attorney General Pam Bondi and Governor Rick Scott to hide behind.

Attorneys General and Governors across the country, aware of their duty to protect the basic rights of their residents, have declined to defend anti-gay marriage bans precisely because it is clear to them that these laws are both morally and constitutionally indefensible.

Florida is now in the unhappy position of being among the last states in our nation to get right on one of the civil rights issues of our day. How low on that list of shame will Pam Bondi and Rick Scott force Florida to fall?

Today’s action is a victory for loving couples in Indiana, Wisconsin, Utah, Oklahoma, and Virginia where Federal courts have struck down bans on marriage equality as unconstitutional.

In addition, it leaves in place the circuit court rulings from the 4th, 7th and 10th Circuits, meaning couples in West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming will soon be able to marry as well. They will soon join the other 19 states and the District of Columbia where the discriminatory bans have been overturned.

Four years ago, on September 22, 2010, a day Charlie Crist describes as one of his proudest moments as an elected official, an appeals court declared Florida’s notorious ban on adoption by gay and lesbian people unconstitutional.

Crist showed true leadership, responding the same day by calling for an immediate end to the ban and paving the way for thousands of prospective parents to begin adopting the children they loved.

Rick Scott and Pam Bondi face a nearly identical scenario today. End the appeals.  Let thousands of Florida’s loving couples enjoy the same legal protections as every other married couple in our state.