Judge rules against ban on same sex marriage

BY SEAN KINNEY

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Ten days after hearing arguments in his Plantation Key courtroom, Monroe County Chief Circuit Court Judge Luis Garcia on Thursday struck down Florida’s six-year-old ban on same sex marriage.

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Office filed an appeal of Garcia’s decision the same day, putting on hold initial plans for the Monroe County Clerk of the Court’s Office to start issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples on Tuesday.

Garcia decided a civil lawsuit brought by Aaron Hunstman and William Lee Jones, Key West bartenders and partners of more than a decade, against local Clerk of the Courts Amy Heavilin and Bondi.

Heavilin’s office refused to issue Huntsman and Jones a marriage license on April 1, prompting the legal action.

The state’s defense in this case, and a similar action pending in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, has been that the court should recognize the results of the 2008 referendum question that established the ban.

At the hearing earlier this month, Jones and Williams’ attorney, Bernadette Restivo, argued that, “An individual’s fundamental right many not be submitted to a vote.”

In his opinion Garcia wrote: “The court is aware that the majority of voters oppose same-sex marriage, but it is our country’s proud history to protect the rights of the individual, the rights of the unpopular and the rights of the powerless, even at the cost of offending the majority.”

Appeals to Monroe County Circuit Court decisions are heard by three-judge panels from the Third District Court of Appeal based in Miami.

 

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