Never Give Up

Does it seem like Florida’s Attorney General Pam Bondi is like the little Dutch boy with his finder in the dike [no pun intended] trying to stop the flow? Now she is saying that the court ruling only covers one clerk and not the whole state.

Gay marriage confusion clouds the Sunshine State
MSNBC
By Emma Margolin
12/30/14

With a week to go before a federal ruling that struck down Florida’s same-sex marriage ban officially kicks in, uncertainty over what exactly that ruling requires continues to cloud the Sunshine State.

Late Monday, Florida’s Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a short legal brief stating that if a federal judge who overturned the state’s same-sex marriage ban earlier this year intended his ruling to apply throughout Florida’s 67 counties, he would have to issue a clarification explicitly saying so.

The state’s legal filing, submitted to U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle at his request, argued that his August ruling – as written – required only one clerk named in the lawsuit to grant two plaintiffs in Washington County a marriage license on Jan. 6, the day Hinkle’s order takes effect. Bondi’s brief, however, also left open the likely possibility that Judge Hinkle would indeed clarify he meant to compel all county clerks in the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Then there is the so called “Family” organization that filed a last minute lawsuit,

Citing that analysis, a majority of Florida’s clerks who participated in an Associated Press inquiry said they would not be granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Jan. 6. Florida Family Action (FFA) then announced on Tuesday that it had filed two lawsuits against three elected officials, including Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, because they had expressed plans to participate in same-sex couples’ weddings next week.

“All three of these officials have shown great contempt and disrespect for the rule of law and are behaving irresponsibly and unprofessionally,” said John Stemberger, FFA president, in a statement. “The federal court decision is clear that it only applies narrowly to the two plaintiffs and only in Washington County. Elected officials must be held accountable to the law and to the constitution they have sworn to uphold.”

Doesn’t  Florida Family Action remember California’s family group that the courts had said they didn’t have “standing” to file a lawsuit?

So the three ring circus continues.