FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – November 18, 2014
CONTACT: ACLU of Florida Media Office, media@aclufl.org, (786) 363-2737
ATLANTA, GA – This afternoon, Florida officials filed a motion asking the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to extend the stay that had been put on a lower court’s decision striking down Florida’s marriage ban throughout the appeals process.
On November 5th, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued an order stating that the stay would be lifted on January 5th, allowing his previous ruling striking down the marriage ban to go into effect on January 6th. The ruling striking down the marriage ban was the result of two cases -- one brought by the ACLU of Florida on behalf of 8 couples, a Fort Myers widow and SAVE, South Florida’s largest LGBT rights organization; the other by Jacksonville attorneys William Sheppard and Sam Jacobson.
The State filed an appeal on that ruling to the 11th Circuit, and the State’s opening brief to that Court was filed on Friday, November 14th. Now that the State has moved to extend the stay, attorneys for the plaintiffs have an opportunity to file a response explaining why the motion should be denied.
In response to today’s filing, ACLU of Florida LGBT rights staff attorney Daniel Tilley, the lead ACLU attorney in the case, stated:
“As if it wasn’t clear already, Attorney General Bondi and Governor Scott are putting up every possible legal obstacle they can think of to try to postpone the inevitable: loving couples being able to have the commitments they’ve made to one another respected by the state they call home.
“The State has plenty of time to prepare for marriages to begin in January, as Judge Hinkle’s latest order required, and every day that our clients go without the protections and responsibilities of marriage, they are being harmed. We are preparing to file a response soon, explaining why this motion should be denied.”
A copy of the State’s motion is available here: https://aclufl.org/resources/states-motion-to-11th-circuit-for-extended-...
Plaintiffs in the ACLU’s case are represented by attorneys from the ACLU’s LGBT Rights Project, the ACLU of Florida, and the Podhurt Orseck law firm. More information on the case, including bios of the couples, is available at: www.aclufl.org/marriageequality
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