The ruling applies only to couples who get hitched in Monroe County, not to couples who already got married out of state. Full text of the ruling here.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Marriage OK'd in Key West
Weddings can begin next Tuesday, the 22nd, in fabulous Key West, Florida, but this is only a partial victory. The ruling is by a state circuit judge, not a federal judge, and applies only to Monroe County, not the entire state. Freedom to Marry reports on the ruling.
The ruling applies only to couples who get hitched in Monroe County, not to couples who already got married out of state. Full text of the ruling here.
The ruling applies only to couples who get hitched in Monroe County, not to couples who already got married out of state. Full text of the ruling here.
2 comments:
A minor victory to be sure. But these "united" states are such a hodgepodge of laws. It may have worked 100 years ago, but it no longer does - and with a do-nothing-congress, we will be in a quagmire for years to come.
Thank goodness the courts are generally sensible and reasonable - except when it comes to corporations and Hobby Lobby.
What will those decisions mean for same-sex couples who are legally married? married, except when they enter a business or a hospital or university (etc) that for religious reasons doesn't recognize their marriage?
I've long had the idea in the back of my mind that the six little New England states ought to glom together into one state, which would simply a lot of stuff up in your neck of the woods, wouldn't it?
But I'm not sure eliminating all state borders across this huge, sprawling country and putting EVERYFREAKINTHING directly under Washington's control (i.e., the control of that do-nothing Congress you mentioned) would be a very good idea.
If it happened, you guys in New England, glommed up or separate, would always be outvoted by the representatives of California, Texas, and other furrin parts. Would that be good for you?
But yes I agree it's silly to have something as fundamental and universal as marriage be regulated by a crazy quilt of state laws, which as you suggested causes immense difficulties - especially if now any corporation can say "Oh it's against our corporate beliefs to serve gay people" - fuck that.
You are in business to serve the public, you have to serve all the public, in my view. No picking and choosing. Churches of course get an automatic exemption - and I would even go so far as to exempt groups directly affiliated with a particular church like (I assume) the Knights of Columbus, etc.
Having been a (totally misplaced) Bible-thumping fundamentalist in my naïve youth, I can understand where the upset cake-bakers are coming from. But ya know what? As somebody pointed out in a recent magazine article I read, they often do divorce cakes, Jewish cakes, pagan cakes, all sorts of other stuff that *ought* to be "strictly against our religious beliefs," and gladly take the money.
So they can just get used to it, I guess, with the gay cakes.
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