While marriage equality is spreading across much of the rest of the country, here in Florida our Republican legislature is debating whether 1% of equality is still too much for Florida’s gay and lesbian couples.
Florida’s constitutional amendment defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and prohibits the legal recognition of any other legal union that is “treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof.”
Marriage and civil unions by same-sex couples are constitutionally prohibited. However, the amendment does not prohibit a statewide domestic partnership law which could provide a limited set of important rights to unmarried gay and straight couples in all corners of the state. Thanks to the recent wave of Florida municipalities enacting domestic partnership registries (with bipartisan votes and overwhelming public support), nearly 50% of our population is protected in varying degrees on a local level. What about consistent protections for everyone, regardless of where they may be on a particular day?
State Senator Eleanor Sobel (D) has introduced a Bill for the last five years seeking to enact a statewide domestic partnership law. For the first four years, the Bill was never heard. This year, due to a fairly miraculous set of circumstances, the Bill was granted a Committee hearing before the Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee, chaired by Senator Sobel. The Bill would have granted far less than half of the cumulative state and federal rights afforded to marriage. But for the Republicans on the Committee, that was just “too much.”
Rather than let the Bill die, Sobel tabled it, and allowed us to re-write it to attempt to appeal to her Republican colleagues’ stated concerns. The new Bill, set for hearing on March 12, now contains approximately 1% of those rights afforded to married heterosexuals in Florida. (They are important rights – like hospital visitation, medical decision-making, and inheritance rights.) And even if this Bill passes this Committee, it must survive six more Committees (not chaired by friendly Democrats) before making it to the Senate floor for a vote.
And a companion Bill must run this same gauntlet in the House. It looks bleak in Tallahassee, so let’s look elsewhere for some good news.
A solid majority of Americans now support marriage equality. It currently exists in nine states plus the District of Columbia, covering approximately 50 million people, representing 16% of the U.S. population. Counting California, where marriage equality is on hold pending a legal challenge, these numbers increase to 88 million people and 29% of the population. And although same-sex married couples are currently denied the nearly 1,200 federal rights and benefits that attach to heterosexual marriages, that may be about to change.
This month, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two historic cases. In United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court will determine the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which provides that the word “marriage,” as used in any federal law or regulation, means only a union of a man and a woman. This affects veterans’ benefits, tax adjustments, Social Security, and many other benefits. Because of DOMA, New Yorker Edith Windsor had to pay an estate tax of $363,053 upon her wife’s death. She sued, arguing that DOMA’s different treatment of married gay and heterosexual couples violates the equal protection guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. The district court found in Windsor’s favor, the Second Circuit of Appeals agreed, and the ruling has been appealed to the Supreme Court.
In Hollingsworth v. Perry, the California Supreme Court overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage because it violated the guarantee of equal protection in the California constitution. California voters then approved a ballot measure, Proposition 8, amending the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages. A federal district court ruled that Proposition 8 violated the equal protection guarantee of the U.S. Constitution because California had given same-sex couples the right to marry, and then took it away again, without legitimate reason.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and the Proposition 8 supporters sought review by the Supreme Court.
The decisions in these cases could have a tremendous impact in advancing marriage equality. If Perry is upheld, California will formally join the growing list of states that grant marriage equality, and the ruling could establish a legal precedent that would set the stage for certain other states to follow.
If Windsor is upheld, married gay couples would acquire those 1,200 federal rights and benefits. However, the bad news is that neither of these decisions would necessarily improve our situation here in Florida because we don’t fit into either of the situations addressed by these cases.
So, while much of America progresses toward full marriage equality, in Florida it remains to be seen whether just 1% of equality is still “too much” for our Republican-controlled government.
