As gay and lesbian couples began
marrying Monday in one Florida county, foes conceded that the fight
is over.
Wedding bells began ringing for gay
couples a day earlier than expected in Miami-Dade County, where a
state judge lifted a stay in her July ruling striking down Florida's
gay marriage ban.
(Related: Miami-Dade
begins issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.)
The ruling only affected Miami-Dade
County, but a federal judge's ruling ending the ban statewide took
effect at midnight.
“We're feeling that it's futile,”
the Rev. O'Neal Dozier, founder of the Worldwide Christian Center
Church in Pompano Beach, told the Sun-Sentinel.
“We've lost this cultural fight.”
John Stemberger, whose Orlando-based
Florida Family Policy Council campaigned for passage of Florida's
2008 voter-approved constitutional amendment limiting marriage to
heterosexual unions, also sounded defeated.
“There could be an appeal to the 11th
Circuit but I'm not sure how successful that would be given the fact
that they've kicked it back once,” he told The
Miami Herald.
(Related: Florida
conservative willing to die opposing gay marriage; Says he's saving
civilization.)