Sending strong but mixed messages, the Florida Supreme Court just declined to rule on a unique same-sex marriage case until a lower court passes judgment first.
Mariama Monique Changamire Shaw and Kelba Lynn Shaw were married in Massachusetts but want to get divorced in Florida. Last month in a 10-3 ruling — without rendering a decision – Florida’s 2nd District Court of Appeal voted to ask the state Supreme Court to decide the case, citing its “significant public and media interest.”
This morning, the Florida Supreme Court disagreed, siding with the three dissenting justices, as the AP reports.
The Supreme Court instructed the 2nd District Court of Appeal to decide the case by itself, without string why, except to imply that the case does not warrant the “significant public and media interest” the lower court claimed.
“Four other state court judges and one federal judge have overturned Florida’s ban on gay marriages,” the Tampa Tribune notes. “But those rulings have all been put on hold while Attorney General Pam Bondi appeals. Consequently, the decisions do not yet have the force of law in Florida.”
The Supreme Court could consolidate all of the same-sex marriage cases or separate the divorce cases from the ones in which gay couples sued clerks of court who refused to grant them marriage licenses. The Family Law Section of the Florida Bar and the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers filed briefs in the case “as a matter of family and matrimonial lawyers seeking finality and certainty in their area of practice.â€
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