Daniel TilsonDr. Juan Carlos Rodriguez is a veteran Miami internist, a pulmonary specialist, and a devoted family man with 3-year-old twins, a boy and a girl.
But as much as he wants to, he cannot get married.
Although he has been in a committed, loving relationship with the same person for almost 18 years, the state of Florida won’t allow them to get married, because that person is another man, David Price.
In 2008 the Christian evangelical group Love Protects and Executive Director Jannique Stewart spearheaded a constitutional amendment campaign that succeeded in getting enough votes to ban same-sex marriage in Florida.
Imagine how you’d feel if the person you’ve loved and shared your life with for nearly two decades, the person you’re raising two young children with, was legally banned from being wed to you.
With a measure of restraint I’d find almost impossible to summon were I in his situation, Dr. Rodriguez puts it this way:
“David and I are devoted to our children. We are a family in every way, except that Florida will not allow us to marry.”
If the Rule of Law means anything anymore and is applied without prejudice, then Juan Carlos, David and countless more loving, committed Florida couples will be free from that ban before long.
Together with the Equality Florida Institute, they and 10 other Floridians (five same-sex couples) on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in a state court in Miami. As stated in a press release:
“The lawsuit argues that Florida’s laws barring same-sex couples from marriage violate the United States Constitution by denying them the legal protections and equal dignity that having the freedom to marry provides.”
While an organization called Equal Marriage Florida is also vigorously engaged in a petition drive to get a marriage equality amendment on the 2014 ballot, the courts seem a better bet for moving Florida forward.
That’s because of the money and fervor fueling Christian conservative efforts to mislead religious, moral people at the grassroots level into confusing marriage equality with an attack on the institution of marriage. Love Protects’ Stewart uses rhetoric like this:
“We’re going to do our part again of protecting the family, protecting, preserving the sanctity of marriage …and make sure that we educate the public [to] see the difference between homosexual relationships and traditional marriage the way God designed it.”
In a state beset by child poverty, with 35 percent of single-parent families living in poverty, one has to wonder how Floridians of faith can condone barring financially stable, socially responsible parents like Juan Carlos and David, who believe so strongly in the institution of marriage, from partaking in it.
Note that it was Florida’s own conservative Christian U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio who recently said:
“The truth is that the greatest tool …that decreases the probability of child poverty by 82 percent…it’s called marriage.”
Given the latest polling, it’s doubtful the relatively small percentage of Floridians responsible for passing the 2008 ban accurately reflects public opinion on marriage equality in 2014.
With national support growing steadily and last year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings supporting the civil rights of same-sex couples to marry, the time has come for Florida to put humanism, civil rights and family values above religious dogma and outdated fears.
There’s no doubt, marriage equality is coming to Florida. The only questions are how and when.
And while I’m an agnostic (a very spiritual one!), when that day does come I’ll be joining millions of others in raising my arms in the air and cheering “Thank Heavens!”
