Melissa Ross
Ousted Atlantic Beach Commissioner Maria Mark had a run-in with the police Monday night. As The Florida Times-Union reported, police say Mark tried to confront a resident who supported Mark’s opponent, new Commissioner-elect John Stinson.
Mark told the T-U the last straw was a “hateful sign” in the homeowner’s yard that “stated Mark should have known her involvement in getting the Human Rights Ordinance passed in Atlantic Beach would cost her the election.”
It’s the latest raw flash point when it comes to LGBT politics in Florida. (Mark led the charge to update the Atlantic Beach HRO to cover LGBT residents).
Consider:
Same-sex marriage is now the law. That SCOTUS decision remains divisive, however. For example, an Orlando firm, Liberty Counsel, is currently representing a Kentucky court clerk engaged in her ongoing legal standoff with the high court over her refusal to marry a gay couple.
Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have both worked to cast themselves as champions of religious liberty on the campaign trail, trying to thread a very narrow needle as they try to appeal to different factions of their base.
Yet at the same time, record numbers of Americans now say they’re fine with same-sex marriage.
A few weeks ago, Osceola County updated its HRO to make it LGBT-inclusive.
Also, last month Republican State Rep. Holly Raschein of Key Largo filed a bill for the 2016 legislative session that would ban workplace discrimination in Florida on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Raschein: “I can be just as conservative as I want to be and still believe in eliminating discrimination for LGBT people.”
“I expect there will be lot of interest locally in the race for Clerk of Court in Duval,” says Northeast Florida LGBT PAC Chair Jimmy Midyette.
“Clerk Ronnie Fussell stopped all members of his staff from performing weddings in the courthouse on the eve of marriage equality in Florida. That was and remains very disappointing to everyone in Duval County who relied on the courthouse for civil wedding services, not only same-sex couples.”
Fussell’s move to end courthouse weddings generated Daily Show derision, so emblematic of the betwixt-and-between that is this issue right now in Florida. The state’s business community may be foursquare behind LGBT equality, but with large swaths of religious voters remaining staunchly opposed, officeholders in red redoubts are still in a bind.
And in a state as large, complex, and diverse as Florida, different communities can expect to see different results. In conservative Atlantic Beach, a Commissioner loses her seat and gets into a scuffle. Meanwhile, in Key Largo, another officeholder who champions the LGBT issue may see a very different trajectory ahead.
