UPDATED: Circuit Judge Third To Rule Florida Same-Sex Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

A Circuit Court judge has just struck down Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage, the third to do so in three weeks.

Broward County state Circuit Court Judge Dale Cohen has just ruled that Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Cohen is the third Florida state judge to rule the Sunshine State’s ban violates the Constitution. The ruling applies only to Broward County, and the judge immediately issued a stay.

“The judge indicated that ‘He was not prepared to grant the divorce without addressing the constitutionality of the same-sex marriage ban — and the same-sex marriage recognition ban,’ according to Nancy Brodzki, Brassner’s attorney,” Equality Florida said in a statement. “Brodzki then filed a motion for the judge to rule on Florida’s constitutional ban.”

The Orlando Sentinel reports that today’s ruling is “unique, however, because it’s the first requiring the state to recognize a gay marriage conducted elsewhere.”

The other two – one July 17 by a judge in Monroe County and another July 25 by a Miami-Dade judge – only required local clerks of court to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Those decisions have not yet been enforced because of pending appeals, meaning no same-sex couple has gotten married in Florida.

In today’s case, a West Palm Beach woman is asking Cohen to give her a divorce. Heather Brassner and Megan Lade were joined in a civil union July 6, 2002, in Vermont, according to Brassner’s attorney, Nancy Brodzki, of Coral Springs.

The couple broke up, and Lade disappeared, Brodzki said. Now Brassner wants to get on with her life.

She filed for divorce last year, but in similar cases, other Florida judges have refused to grant them, citing Florida’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and saying they cannot dissolve a marriage that the state does not recognize.

62 percent of Florida voters in 2008 passed the marriage ban.

“Every win in court brings us closer than we’ve ever been to the freedom to marry in Florida,” said Nadine Smith, CEO of Equality Florida. “We look forward to the day when all loving, committed couples and their families enjoy the same protections, opportunities and responsibilities of marriage under the law.  Every passing day inflicts real hardships on families who are denied the legal protection and dignity that marriage equality provides.” 

There is yet another case on same-sex marriage for Florida, a federal case expected to be decided soon.

Pam Bondi, the State Republican Attorney General on her third marriage who came under fire for claiming that recognizing out-of-state legal civil same-sex marriages would “impose significant public harm,” play havoc with existing marriage laws in the Sunshine State, and suggested that gays don’t have “stable and enduring family units” has already filed an appeal of the other two Florida cases and is expected to fight all three. 

Bondi is running for re-election this year and has been photographed hobnobbing with GOP elites, including Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman and anti-gay activist Ralph Reed.

UPDATE: Here’s the full ruling, thanks to the folks at Equality Case Files:

 

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