FLORIDA: Judge Gives State Until Monday To Respond On Marriage Motion

Via the Miami Herald:

U.S. Judge Robert L. Hinkle has given Florida officials named in the federal gay marriage case until Monday to repond to a clerk's motion for clarification whether she must marry one same-sex couple or all same-sex couples who come to her office Jan. 6.  “The Clerk requests clarification as to whether the Injunction requires that the Clerk only issue marriage licenses to Stephen Schlairet and Ozzie Russ as specifically set forth in the Injunction, both of whom are parties to this matter, or if the Injunction requires that the Clerk issue marriage licenses to all same-sex couples who apply once the stay expires at the end of the day on January 5, 2015,” lawyers for Washington County Clerk Lora Bell wrote to Hinkle on Tuesday.  When Hinkle declared Florida’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional on Aug. 21, he ordered “the defendant Secretary of the Florida Department of Management Services and the defendant Florida Surgeon General must take no steps to enforce or apply” the ban.

And the mess rolls on.

UPDATE: Whoa. Hinkle is pissed.

I stayed the preliminary injunction until 91 days after stays were denied or lifted for three specific decisions of federal courts of appeals. The United States Supreme Court and those courts of appeals lifted their stays. By its terms, my original stay was set to expire at the end of the day on January 5, 2015. The defendants filed motions to extend the stay in this court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. The defendants lost all the motions. Unless a court reconsiders—an unlikely possibility—the stay will end on January 5. From January 6 forward, compliance with the injunction will be mandatory.

Read the full order.