Spurred on by two landmark Supreme Court victories, LGBT activists are pressing hard to overturn state bans on same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia. But, warns Howard Simon, the executive director of ACLU of Florida, don’t expect any substantive changes in the near future for the sunshine state. “I don’t want to build up any false expectations that it would be good to run back to the ballot right now, or that it would be good to think that we should file a lawsuit any time until the hearts and minds change more and the environment changes a bit more,” Simon told the Miami Herald.
The problem cites Nadine Smith, Equality Florida’s executive director, is that in order for an amendment to be repealed 60 percent of Floridians must approve of the action. Currently, however only 54 percent of those polled approve of same-sex marriage. “There are two places that we’re really investing in,” Smith explained. “When you look at the places where marriage equality has come, through the legislature or through the ballot, it’s preceded by a deep investment of a public education campaign that humanizes these issues.”
Meanwhile, a petition drive aiming for the 2014 calendar year is already underway. It is being spearheaded by Miami-based political strategist Vanessa Brito who added that if current political winds are not in her favor by January for the November 2014 ballot, she would hold the petition for two more years. “In three weeks,” she enthused, “we collected nearly 40,000 signatures.”
But while activists and lawyers remain guardedly optimistic over the long run, they are realistic about the chances of same-sex marriage coming to Florida anytime soon. “An extensive analysis of the national landscape makes it clear that, given the political environment in Florida, including the decidedly unprogressive state of our federal appeals court, we are more likely to secure the right to marry for Florida’s same-sex couples from victories in other states than by initiating either a lawsuit or a referendum in Florida,” Howard Simon noted somberly.
I hope the elderly will vote FOR same gender marriage.
Just remember how many times you feel the sting of anti-elderly – and wish people would remember that they, too, will get old, if they’re lucky.
Forget about SEX — vote for two people to marry because they choose to love their partner ’til death do us part.