After state ban is lifted, gays marry across Florida

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Florida's ban on same-sex marriage ended statewide at the stroke of midnight Monday, and officials expecting big crowds at local courthouses were not disappointed.

U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle's ruling Monday that Florida's same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional took effect in all 67 counties.

Florida's attorney general, Pam Bondi, is still pursuing state and federal appeals seeking to uphold the ban voters approved in 2008, but her effort to block these weddings until the courts finally rule was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Miami judge who found no need to wait until the statewide ban expired. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Sarah Zabel presided over Florida's first legally recognized same-sex marriages Monday afternoon.

In Fort Myers' Lee County, Chance Chadwick and Daniel Perono were the first same-sex couple to get married, just before 8 a.m. They looked overjoyed and incredibly proud.

"We didn't know who'd look better in a gown," one said laughing. It was a short ceremony, but meaningful.

With the words, "with this ring, I thee wed" they tied the knot in a simple ceremony.

Instead of "I now pronounce you husband and wife," the officiant said "I now pronounce you married partners...you may now kiss your spouse.

Susan Amann, 44, and Lisa Brinhall, 42, of Cape Coral came next. It still hasn't sunk in both said. Now, they're planning a trip to Disney World.

About a half dozen couples already have been married Tuesday morning at the Escambia County Courthouse in Pensacola.

For many couples, it not just about love. Marriage brings with it a host of basic human rights that have been long denied to gay couples.

Jerald Mitchell said he previously didn't have the right to visit his partner in the hospital if he was sick, even though they had been together 23 years. He also said they could finally share benefits and insurance.

"I don't have to worry about what happens if I die or if he dies," Mitchell said.

Before the doors of the courthouse had even opened, about a dozen couples gathered on the second floor of the M.C. Blanchard building in Pensacola waiting for services to begin.

"Everybody is so ready for this to finally be here," Christine Nolan (soon to be Burnham) said. "When I heard they starting doing them down south this morning, I started jumping up and down like 'Yay, we're next!'"

Nolan and her partner of eight years, Jean Burnham, will be among the couples married at the courthouse Tuesday.

Holy Cross Metropolitan Community Church will have three ordained ministers at the church, performing free wedding ceremonies every 30 minutes beginning at 10 a.m. and continuing for up to 24 hours.

In Tallahassee, the first same-sex marriage license was issued at the Leon County Clerk of Courts office Tuesday morning shortly after 8 a.m. Richelle Marisco and Manda Smith were the first couple to receive one.

Rebecca and Marcy MacDonell exchanged their vows Tuesday morning on the back steps of the Florida Capitol, becoming the first gay couple to get married legally in Leon County.

"I love you," Marcy whispered after kissing her partner of 14 years.

Rebecca MacDonells' parents and sister attended the ceremony in front of the dolphin statute while Marcy MacDonell's sister from Illinois watched via Facetime.

The MacDonells married in 2002, though their union wasn't recognized by the state.

"Our church has recognized us as married for years, but the state hasn't," Rebecca MacDonell said. "And so to be there at the clerk's office and to get our paperwork and do it here at the Capitol -- I never thought this day would come."

Florida residents must pay $93.50 for a marriage license and wait three days before getting married, unless they have taken part in premarital counseling before they apply. Couples who have taken part in the counseling can avoid the waiting period and pay a discounted fee of $61.

In Brevard County, Rockledge residents Angelique Bonadio and Tiffany Gregg received the first gay marriage license issued at the Moore Justice Center in Viera. The couple planned to wed later Tuesday during a private ceremony.

"We've been engaged for two and a half years," Gregg said outside the courthouse. "We kind of had the plan. We were just waiting for it to become legal."

"We wanted to do it in our hometown," she added.

The first couple to line up at the Hillsborough County Clerk's Office in Downtown Tampa arrived way ahead of time at 4:45 p.m. Monday.

Shortly before 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, they were pronounced "joined in matrimony" by Hillsborough County Clerk Pat Frank.

Now that same-sex marriage is a reality in Florida, Bondi's spokeswoman told The Associated Press "the judge has ruled, and we wish these couples the best."

The addition of Florida's 19.9 million people means 70 percent of Americans now live in the 36 states where gay marriage is legal.

"It's been a long time coming. We're just so excited and so happy," said Osceola County Commissioner Cheryl Grieb on Monday, moments after she married Patti Daugherty, her partner of 22 years, at the Osceola County Courthouse in Kissimmee, just south of Orlando. Dressed in matching white pants and white embroidered shirts, the couple stood under a canopy of lace and ribbons as County Clerk of Court Armando Ramirez officiated and U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., served as a witness. A countdown clock was placed in the front of the room, and supporters counted down to midnight 10 seconds before the clock struck 12.

"I'm hyped up at the moment," said Grieb, whose marriage was the first in Osceola County and was followed by 27 others in the early morning hours.

Outside the courthouse, about 20 protesters held signs reading "God says male and female should be married" and "Sodom and Gomorrah," but same-sex marriage supporters ignored them.

In Key West, at the southern tip of Florida, Aaron Huntsman and William Lee Jones, exchanged nuptials early Tuesday dressed in matching black tuxedos with blue vests, shortly after getting the first marriage license issued to a same-sex couple in the Florida Keys. Several hundred people attended the wedding staged on the steps of the Monroe County Courthouse.

During vows, Huntsman and Jones exchanged handmade silver rings, embraced and kissed. Afterward, Jones removed a large silver-toned bracelet that completely encircled his left wrist. He called it "my shackle of inequality."

"I'm elated. Overjoyed that I am finally legally recognized with the man I have loved for 12 years now," said Jones, whose marriage was followed by nine others in Monroe County overnight.

In Palm Beach County, celebrity financial adviser Suze Orman showed up at a mass wedding of 100 couples at a Delray Beach courthouse to support two friends getting married. Orman, who married her wife, Kathy Travis, a decade ago in South Africa, said she was happy same-sex couples were finally being recognized legally in Florida, where she lives part of the time.

"This is an investment in validity," Orman said.

Broward Clerk Howard Forman also planned to officiate a mass wedding overnight at his county courthouse, and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer planned to do the same at city hall later in the morning. Churches throughout the state were holding mass weddings for same-sex couples on Tuesday.

On Monday, gay and lesbian couples in Miami got a head-start when Zabel said she saw no reason why same-sex couples couldn't immediately get their marriage licenses.

Then, she married two couples, Karla Arguello and Cathy Pareto and Todd and Jeff Delmay, in her chambers, packed with supporters and news media for the event.

"Finally, Florida recognizes us as a couple," Pareto said. "It's just — I don't know, sweet justice."

But while the news was largely met with cheers or even shrugs from Florida's more liberal enclaves, signs of opposition were evident farther north, where more conservative Floridians live.

In Jacksonville, Duval County Court Clerk Ronnie Fussell shut down the courthouse chapel, saying no marriage ceremonies — gay or straight — would be allowed there. At least two other counties in northeast Florida did the same.

"The day is going to come very soon where America is going to wake up and say, 'Whoa! Wait a second! I wanted two guys to live together. I didn't want the fundamental transformation of society,'" said John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy council. He led the petition drive to put the gay marriage ban on the ballot back in 2008.

Republican Jeb Bush, who opposed gay marriage while serving as Florida's governor and who now may seek the presidency, sought a middle ground Monday.

In a statement, he urged people to "show respect for the good people on all sides of the gay and lesbian marriage issue — including couples making lifetime commitments to each other who are seeking greater legal protections and those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty."

Contributing:Cristela Guerra, The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press;The Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal; Jeff Burlew, The Tallahassee Democrat; Rick Neale, Florida Today; WTSP-TV, Tampa, Fla; The Associated Press