On January 21, 2014, six same-sex couples and Equality Florida Institute filed suit in Florida state court against the County Clerk of Miami-Dade County after they were denied marriage licenses because they are of the same gender. Specifically, the complaint alleges that Florida's prohibition on same-sex marriage violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Represented by private counsel and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, plaintiffs sought injunctive and declaratory relief as well as attorneys fees.

The case was assigned to state Judge Sarah Zabel. On July 25, 2014, she struck down the same-sex marriage ban, as applicable in Miami-Dade County. She wrote:

The recognition that the right to marry encompasses categories of people not traditionally considered to be accorded that right has been slow in coming, but it has become increasingly obvious that it is not constitutionally permissible to deny same-sex couples the right to marry.

The flood of cases that have come out since Windsor amply demonstrates this truth as not one court has found a same-sex marriage ban to be constitutional. As case after case has come out, unified in their well-reasoned constitutional condemnation of the deprivation of one class of person's right to marry, the answer to the question of whether it is constitutionally permissible to deprive same-sex couples of the right to marry has become increasingly obvious: Of course it is not. Preventing couples from marrying solely on the basis of their sexual orientation serves no governmental interest. It serves only to hurt, to discriminate, to deprive same-sex couples and their families of equal dignity, to label and treat them as second-class citizens, and to deem them unworthy of participation in one of the fundamental institutions of our society.

News reports say that Florida's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has appealed and that the ruling is stayed pending resolution of that appeal.

Tifani Sadek - 01/21/2014
- 07/26/2014


compress summary