Florida AG Pam Bondi asks Clarence Thomas to extend state's same-sex marriage ban

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi took the first steps to extend her state's ban on same-sex marriage on Monday, filing an emergency petition with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

In August, a federal judge overturned Florida's same-sex marriage ban, calling it an "obvious pretext for discrimination."

While that decision is being appealed, the stay on Florida's ban was set to expire on January 6, despite inaction from higher courts.

"The recent decision denying a longer stay has created statewide confusion about the effect of the injunction, which is directed to only one of Florida's sixty-seven clerks of court," Bondi's office wrote in a press release.

"In a continuation of the effort to maintain uniformity and order throughout Florida until final resolution of the numerous challenges to the voter-approved constitutional amendment on marriage, the Attorney General's Office filed with the United States Supreme Court an application to extend the stay. If the Supreme Court grants the application, the stay will remain in place during the state's appeal. If the Supreme Court denies the stay, then the preliminary injunction will become effective at the end of the day on Jan. 5, 2015."

"It is unsurprising, given how hard Governor Scott, his appointees, and Attorney General Bondi have fought to keep loving and committed couples from getting married and having their marriages recognized in Florida, that they would keep up this dead-end fight," countered Daniel Tilley of the Florida ACLU.

"But with just weeks until the ruling is scheduled to go into effect, it is disappointing. Florida families have waited long enough for the end of a ban that a federal court has declared unconstitutional. Since October, the Supreme Court has refused all requests to stay rulings striking down the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage in other states. We are hopeful they will do the same here so that loving couples and their children can get the protections for which they have waited so long."