'Gay marriage' ruling could affect Florida

Florida opponents to a proposed ban gay marriage ban say a Michigan court ruling  invalidating benefits for same sex-sex partners provides a strong justification to defeat the measure.

"This should be a major, bright red warning sign to Florida voters. If you don't want to take away existing protections and benefits, don’t vote for Amendment 2," Heddy Pena, a member of Florida Red and Blue group running the SayNo2 campaign, said in a news release.

Today, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that the state's 2004 ban against gay marriage also blocks domestic-partner policies affecting gay employees at the University of Michigan and other public-sector employers. The decision affirms a February 2007 appeals court ruling.

Kemple is Hillsborough's anti-gay marriage leader

The voice of conservative social issues in east Hillsborough County, Terry Kemple, has signed on for another one.

Kemple will head up Florida4Marriage.org's efforts to pass the anti-gay marriage amendment on November's ballot, according to a press release from Community Issues Council. Kemple is the council's president.

-- Joni James, State Editor

Racing against a 5 p.m. petition deadline

For a lot of people in Florida, 5 p.m. Friday can't come soon enough, and others wish the moment would never arrive. That's the deadline for county election supervisors to report to the state on the number of verified voter signatures on petitions seeking to amend the state Constitution in November.

As the hours tick away, attention focuses on two petitions, both of them controversial. Hometown Democracy's petition would require voter approval for local land use changes that intensify development, and Florida4Marriage would put a ban on same sex marriages into the Constitution. Both groups' petition-gathering efforts are shrouded in mystery because the state stopped giving daily updates Jan. 11.

Clerks across the state are drowning in petitions. The Division of Election has a bank of FIVE fax machines to avoid busy signals, and put election supervisors on notice that paperwork (verification totals) faxed to the Division of Elections after 5 p.m. today won't be counted. John Stemberger of Florida4Marriage sent a letter to election supervisors earlier this week notifying them of last-minute stacks of petitions headed to their offices. The state will certify all totals at noon Saturday.   

Short of signatures and short of time, too

State elections officials say two high-profile ballot initiatives are short of the 611,009 verified voter signatures needed to get on the ballot with about two-and-a-half weeks to go. The big surprise: Florida For Marriage Protection, the group pushing a ban on same-sex marriages, was about 22,000 signatures short with a total of 589,020 Monday, even though the group called a news conference last month, claiming it had reached the signature target.

What happened? Sterling Ivey, spokesman for the Division of Elections, cited a discrepancy in the Miami-Dade elections office, where more than 20,000 duplicate signatures received in 2006 were counted twice. Ivey's boss, Secretary of State Kurt Browning, last week junked that pre-2007 automated counting method in favor of a new  requirement for paper reporting, precisely because of concerns about unreliable county numbers.

In the second case, Florida Hometown Democracy had 501,000 signatures as of Monday, putting it about 110,000 signatures short of the mark. The deadline for submission of signatures is Feb. 1.   

NAACP's Bond fights gay marriage ban

The citizen initiative banning gay marriage isn't officially on the November 2008 ballot yet, but opponents aren't bothering to wait.

Julian Bond, the civil rights leader and longtime national chairman of the NAACP has taped an Internet ad on behalf of Fairness for All Families, the coalition organizing to oppose the citizen initiative.

Bond, calling himself a full-time Florida property owner and a part-time resident, notes in the ad that the "NAACP doesn't have any position for or against same sex marriage," but that the group has "opposed every constitutional attempt or amendment to create these divisions among people based on their sexual orientation."

The measure "is divisive. It's harmful. It does not bring people together, it drives them apart," Bond said. (The advertisement can be seen here.)

AARP: Marriage amendment threatens seniors

From today's story on the gay marriage amendment: "Bentley Lipscomb, former state director of Florida AARP, said the measure could have a large, unintended impact on elderly couples, many of whom don't marry because it would change their Social Security benefits. "The way they drafted it, it will cause a problem," he said. "Nonmarried couples would not be able to enjoy the same ability to take care of each other. ... Even visiting them in the hospital when they are terminal would be problematic. Then there's the whole question of making decisions about the end of life."

"Stemberger countered, saying opponents were uninformed and misleading the public about the real impact. "It's just a pathetic, desperate strategy," he said.

Marriage amendment close

UPDATE: John Stemberger, leader of the Florida4Marriage effort and the Florida Family Policy Council, called to correct the record and clarify that Verdugo's "self-serving" statement was "not accurate." Those signatures just reached Stemberger's office, he said, and it may be weeks before they're counted.

The Christian Family Coalition says that today it filed the remaining 3,300 petitions needed to bring an amendment to the state constitition to Florida voters next fall.