Argued Same-Sex Marriage Would ‘Impose Significant Public Harm’
Florida’s Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi was one of the most active and recognizable fighters against same-sex marriage in the run up to the Supreme Court taking up the issue. And now, Florida taxpayers will have to pay almost a half million dollars in legal fees to the winning attorneys, thanks entirely to Bondi’s unyielding defense. NBC Miami reports the final figure is $493,000.
In 2014 Bondi had argued that recognizing out-of-state legal civil same-sex marriages would “impose significant public harm†and play havoc with existing marriage laws in the Sunshine State, a claim that two years later has been proven wholly false.
Bondi also suggested that same-sex couples don’t create stable or enduring homes.
“Florida’s marriage laws,†Bondi wrote in a court filing (PDF), “have a close, direct, and rational relationship to society’s legitimate interest in increasing the likelihood that children will be born to and raised by the mothers and fathers who produced them in stable and enduring family units.â€
Time after time after time Bondi lost in court, and time after time after time Bondi appealed.
In the summer of 2015, after learning attorneys fees would amount to about $500,000, Bondi refused to pay, despite being legally obligated to do so. She claimed that because she had dropped her appeals after the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell, she didn’t owe the winning attorneys a dime.
Bondi became a reviled figure for the anti-gay rhetoric in her court filings, which were deemed not only false but hypocritical, given she was on her third marriage.
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Image via Pam Bondi