Florida Keys might conduct first gay marriage on Tuesday

A Florida Keys judge issued a ruling that would allow gay couples to marry starting next Tuesday, all at the urging of a couple of bartenders who originally had their request to marry denied. This decision overturns a constitutional ban approved in the state by referendum in 2008.

The ruling comes after Aaron Huntsman and William Lee Jones sued Monroe County Clerk Amy Heavilin for a marriage license.

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“That’s all it takes is a walk across the hall,” said Bernadette Restivo, an attorney for the couple. “It’s just about 10 feet from the door of the court to the door of the clerk’s office.”

Huntsman and Jones, both bartenders, plan on getting married in the Plantation Key Courtroom on Tuesay.

Both men work at 801 Bourbon Bar on Duval Street. According to the Miami Herald’s Gay South Fla. Blog, both keys residents met years ago at a gay pride celebration. They wanted to marry on June 10^th, the date of their 11^th year anniversary, but were denied by the clerk’s office.

The legal fight for the recognition of gay marriage in the state has a long road ahead that will probably lead to a state supreme court hearing. In May Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi stated in documents that recognizing same sex marriages performed in other states would disrupt existing marriage laws and “impose significant public harm.”

Monroe County Circuit Judge Luis Garcia’s decision ordered that the two Key West bartenders and other gay couples seeking to wed be allowed to marry.

Garcia gave the Monroe County Clerk’s Office until Tuesday to begin issuing marriage licenses in order to give the office time to prepare for the case load that might present itself from several couples requesting marriage licenses at once. However, if an appeal of the ruling is filed between now and Tuesday the weddings will have to wait.

“The court is aware that the majority of voters oppose same-sex marriage, but it is our country’s proud history to protect the rights of the individual, the rights of the unpopular and rights of the powerless, even at the cost of offending the majority,” Garcia wrote in his opinion, released Thursday afternoon.

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In January attorneys filed a similar suit on behalf of six same-sex couples who want to marry in Miami-Dade County. Spearheaded by the gay rights advocacy group Equality Florida, the men and women sued Miami-Dade Clerk Harvey Ruvin after his office denied them marriage licenses. That lawsuit in pending, but in light of the decision in Monroe County, where the keys are located, attorneys in the Miami-Dade cases were briefing their clients Thursday morning as to what this all means.

Florida currently has two different laws in its state constitution barring gay marriage and civil unions, including the most recent passed in 2008.

Nadine Smith, CEO of the Equality Florida Institute, issued a statement Thursday: “This is a monumental step forward for Florida. Today’s historic ruling affirms what the majority of Florida residents already know to be true: All couples and their families deserve to be treated equally by their government.”