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Aaron Hunstman, left, and his partner of 11 years, William Lee Jones, are challenging Florida’s constitutional ban on gay marriage with a ruling expected in the near future. The couple, bartenders in Key West, are seen Monday outside the Plantation Key Courthouse.

 

Couple waiting out judge’s decision

 

BY SEAN KINNEY

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Aaron Hunstman and William Lee Jones, two Key West bartenders hoping to have a hand in overturning Florida’s constitutional ban on gay marriage, have received an outpouring of community support as they await Chief Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Luis Garcia’s decision.

Attorneys for the couple appeared in Garcia’s Plantation Key courtroom on Monday surrounded by friends and other well-wishers for a hearing.

The judge said he would issue an opinion soon before hearing arguments from Upper Keys attorney Bernadette Restivo, on behalf of Hunstman and Jones, and Assistant Attorney General Adam Tanenbaum on behalf of state Attorney General Pam Bondi, the primary defendant.

Monroe County Clerk of the Courts Amy Heavilin, represented by in-house counsel Ron Saunders, is also a defendant. Her office refused to issue Huntsman and Jones a marriage license on April 1, prompting the civil action.

Restivo called the 2008 amendment to the Florida Constitution, passed by ballot initiative, “hurtful discrimination. An individual’s fundamental right may not be submitted to a vote,” according to video of the hearing.

The actual law, Article 1, Section 27 of the state constitution, reads: “Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”

The ballot initiative, when put to a vote, passed with 61.92 percent of more than 8.4 million total votes.

In Monroe County, which as Restivo pointed out has a long history of open-mindedness and tolerance, the majority voted against the amendment, but not by much.

Based on election records maintained by the Monroe County Supervisor of Elections Office, 18,397 (47.87 percent) voted in favor of barring gay couples from marrying while 19,965 (51.95 percent) voted against the measure.

The Florida Keys case mirrors an action brought in Miami-Dade County by six same sex couples; Tanenbaum is also representing the state in that case.

The defense is, in a nutshell, that the applicable courts should respect the outcome of the 2008 vote and let the constitutional amendment stand.

The local clerk’s office has maintained that, as a constitutional office, the matter is out of its hands as it would be against the law to issue a marriage license in violation of the amendment.

Nadine Smith, CEO of advocacy group Equality Florida, said the outcome could “pave the way for marriage equality in Florida. We are proud to stand with this courageous couple in challenging a law that serves no purpose than to disparage and discriminate against gay couples and our children.”

Restivo also mentioned another Florida ban, publicly championed by singer Anita Bryant and adopted by the state Legislature in 1977, on gay couples adopting children.

Although still part of statutes, the Attorney General’s Office has lately declined to appeal rulings declaring the ban unconstitutional.

That also has a Monroe County link as former-Circuit Court Judge David Audlin ruled in a favor of a Key West couple in their effort to adopt their two foster children. That ruling has gone unchallenged.

“It would make no sense at all to let homosexuals adopt children and to procreate using assisted reproduction but not allow them be married,” said Restivo.

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