Staff Reports
The Florida House voted 82-37 to approve an amended version of a bill (HB 43) that protects clergy members and pastors who refuse to perform gay marriage. The bill was amended Tuesday and some gay rights organizations have dropped their opposition to it.
Carlos Guillermo Smith, governmental affairs manager for Equality Florida, said in a statement:
“The most important agreement in these negotiations has been the firm commitment of the bill sponsors and legislative leadership that this bill will not be expanded to legalize discrimination in the ways we’ve seen unfold in other states. More than that, they agreed to amend the current bill to alleviate some of our previous concerns that vague or overly broad language might be used to hurt LGBT families. While we still believe this bill is an unnecessary duplication of existing law, we are pleased Florida will not go down the path of Georgia, where an expanded ‘pastor protection’ bill would allow LGBT people and others to be refused goods and services.”
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said in a statement:
“We applaud Equality Florida and other advocates for narrowing and clarifying the scope of the bill to ensure that it does not change current law or harm LGBT families.”
Hava Holzhauer, Florida regional director for Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement:
“As an ardent advocate for religious liberty, the Anti-Defamation League believes that the Constitution’s religious freedom protections are a shield for free exercise of religion and not a sword to discriminate against others. ADL opposed the original bill, which is based on a problematic Texas law, because it could have been used by organizations tangentially related to religious institutions to discriminate in the provision of marriage-related services to the public. We dropped our opposition to the bill because unlike states such as Georgia it has not been used to move forward license to discriminate legislation and the compromise language addresses the majority of our concerns.”
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The Florida House approved a bill that creates a sterile syringe exchange pilot program in Miami-Dade County. The passage comes one week after the Senate voted 37-2 to approved it. The bill now heads to the governor.
Julia Negron, project director for the Suncoast Harm Reduction Project, said in a statement:
“The Florida Legislature did the right thing today by passing this critically important bill. In particular, Sen. Oscar Braynon and Rep. Katie Edwards are heroes for sponsoring this lifesaving legislation. Please, Gov. Scott: sign IDEA into law as soon as it hits your desk.”
Bill Piper, senior director of National Affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, said in a statement:
“There’s now a scientific and political consensus that drug use is best treated as a health issue. To start saving lives, Florida needs to follow the lead of states all over the country that have passed syringe access reforms to significantly reduce rates of HIV and other preventable diseases.”
Dr. Hansel Tookes, who will lead the efforts at the University of Miami to create the syringe exchange authorized under IDEA, said in a statement:
“The fourth time is a charm, I suppose. I’m thrilled that we were finally able to get this passed. It unequivocally could not have happened without Sen. Braynon’s leadership. I stand at the ready to begin putting this program in place, and saving lives, as soon as we can.”
