Judge rips Florida’s failure to give gay marriage ‘immediate, unequivocal acceptance’
In a final judgment censuring state officials for not accepting legal redefinition of marriage in the state, a federal judge declared Florida’s voter-approved marriage protection law unconstitutional last week. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle criticized Florida state officials’ failure to act in doing away with the Florida marriage law once he’d overturned it and lambasted them “for a history of resistance” against homosexual “marriage.” After the Supreme Court Obergefell v. Hodges decision "one might have expected immediate, unequivocal acceptance," Hinkle wrote in his 10-page summary judgment order Thursday. "Not so for the state of Florida ." Same-sex partners Jim Brenner and Chuck Jones were first to sue over the marriage law, later asking another same-sex couple, Stephen Schlairat and Ozzie Russ, to join the lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) then filed a challenge as well for eight couples and other plaintiffs, and the cases w