Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist
has filed an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs challenging
Florida's ban on gay marriage.
The 57-year-old Crist has a complicated
relationship with the LGBT community. In 2006, he signed a petition
to put Florida's constitutional amendment limiting marriage to
heterosexual couples on the ballot. Voters approved the ban two
years later.
Since leaving the Republican Party –
with a pit stop as an independent – Crist has reversed course,
apologizing for his support of the ban and stating that chief among
his reasons for leaving the GOP was its opposition to gay rights.
He is currently campaigning for his old
job, as a Democrat.
“In just the last six years, our
society has evolved and moved past the prejudices rooted in our
past,” Crist
said in a statement. “Further, science has uniformly reached
the conclusion that heterosexual marriages are just as valued and
revered as they have ever been; and children raised by gay and
lesbian parents fare just as well as kids raised in straight
families.”
“Thus, with the arc of history now,
in fact, bending toward justice, this issue of marriage equality will
almost certainly not even be an issue for the children and
grandchildren of this State. But it is still the duty of those in
the present to recognize that the legitimacy of government depends
upon its willingness to fairly, transparently, and equitably
administer the law. That goal is frustrated by denying an entire
class of citizens equality in the institution of marriage simply
because of who they are and whom they love.”
Circuit Court Judge Sarah Zabel will
hear arguments in the case, Pareto v. Ruvin, on July 2 in
Miami.
(Equality
Case Files provides the
complete brief.)