Liberty Counsel, Liberty University’s legal arm, is reaching in to stop gay rights activists from declaring Florida’s marriage laws unconstitutional.
On behalf of a diverse coalition of citizen groups crossing racial, political and religious lines, Liberty Counsel today filed a motion to intervene in Pareto v. Ruvin, the lawsuit initiated by LGBT lobbyists.
In 2008, 62 percent of Floridians voted to pass Amendment 2, amending their state constitution to reaffirm marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Mathew and Anita Staver, Liberty Counsel’s chairman and president, respectively, drafted Amendment 2 and successfully defended it against pre-election legal challenges, ultimately winning unanimous approval (7-0) by the Florida Supreme Court.
Amendment 2 was the first constitutional amendment to clear the heightened 60 percent threshold for voter approval, thanks to the largest grass-roots effort on any ballot issue in Florida’s history.
Having lost in the marketplace of ideas and having failed to convince the public to adopt their radical version of marriage, homosexual activists, led by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Equality Florida, have now filed suit, asking Miami judge Sarah Zabel to throw out the votes of 8 million Floridians and to judicially impose homosexual marriage upon all Floridians.
Liberty Counsel represents three umbrella civil rights organizations that are seeking to intervene to protect both marriage and the voting rights of all Floridians. Each of these organizations was instrumental to the passage of Amendment 2, and all are uniting to defend natural man-woman marriage and the right of every Floridian to have his or her vote counted.
“Marriage is a foundational societal institution that transcends racial, political and religious lines,” says Mathew Staver.
“This lawsuit threatens to disenfranchise millions of Floridians who voted to affirm natural marriage and to supplant the clearly expressed will of a supermajority of Florida’s voters with the radical vision of homosexual activists who cannot win at the ballot box,” adds Horatio Mihet, Liberty Counsel’s senior litigation counsel.
“We are committed to provide a vigorous defense for marriage and voting rights,” they conclude.
