Feel free to judge Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi by the company she keeps
Despite
court after
court after
court ruling for marriage equality, some opponents of equality are still
fighting tooth and nail to prevent progress. That includes Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi:
Bondi's office is defending the state against a federal lawsuit filed in north Florida that contends the same-sex marriage ban discriminates against gay couples by not recognizing marriages performed in states where they are legal. Two weeks ago, her office filed motions to intervene in lawsuits filed in Miami-Dade and Monroe circuit courts by gay couples seeking to marry.
Her office claimed in the federal filing that overturning the same-sex marriage ban would "impose significant public harm."
"The promotion of family continuity and stability is a legitimate state interest," she said. "Florida's marriage laws, then, have a close, direct and rational relationship to society's legitimate interest in increasing the likelihood that children will be born to and raised by the mothers and fathers who produced them in stable and enduring family units."
Because no one in the history of ever tried to argue that the state had an interest in preventing some people who cannot have biological children together from marrying while making no objection to the marriages of other people who cannot have biological children together. It's a completely original legal argument likely to be well-received by the courts. Or else it's an argument attempted by Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, only to be
slapped down by a federal judge saying "These arguments are not those of serious people." It's one or the other of those. (It's the latter, the non-serious-people one.)
But then, "serious person" is not the most common description of Pam Bondi. This is, after all, someone who delayed an execution to attend a fundraiser, demonstrating her deep and pure concern for matters of human life, justice, and the law.