Gay Rights Backers Cheering Over Pensacola Partnership Registry
December 22, 2013
The passage of a domestic-partnership registry ordinance in Pensacola has gay rights advocates cheering.
But some social conservatives say the registries mean little in a state where a ban on gay marriage is enshrined in the constitution.
The Pensacola City Council approved the domestic partnership registry by an 8-1 vote last week after hearing from dozens of gay residents who tearfully shared tales of being denied hospital privileges for their loved ones and of drawn-out legal battles after their long-term partners died.
The city joined more than a dozen local governments in Florida, most of them in the more liberal southeastern portion of the state, with similar ordinances giving gay and straight couples who live together but aren’t married the right to make decisions about funerals, visit partners in the hospital or in prisons and be involved in dependents’ schooling.
The ordinance “has tremendous significance,” said Pensacola Councilman Larry Johnson, who sponsored the proposal.
“It does make a statement that Pensacola is a progressive, welcoming, open-minded, accepting, reasonable city,” he said.
With an active LGBT community, the city of Pensacola is decidedly more progressive than the rest of Escambia County. The city is included in a district represented by Republican Rep. Mike Hill, a tea party favorite and rising star in the GOP-controlled Legislature.
City Council Chairwoman Jewel Cannada-Wynn cast the lone “no” vote on the proposal, saying it “undermines the very fiber of our culture, that is marriage and the family unit.”
But the city’s overwhelming approval of the domestic registry signifies a cultural shift in attitudes toward gay rights, said Rep. Joe Saunders, an Orlando Democrat who is one of the first openly gay members of the Legislature.
“There’s something viral happening,” Saunders, who works for a division of the gay rights organization Equality Florida, said. “What you’re seeing is places like Pensacola and cities and counties acknowledging that there are gay and lesbian couples who are contributing members of the community who deserve protections that the federal and state governments won’t give them yet. …It is a sign of progress.”
Monroe County passed the first domestic partnership registry in 1998. Since then, at least 18 other local municipalities or counties have passed similar ordinances. Most of them give domiciled couples the rights to be notified in cases of emergency, make medical decisions about an incapacitated partner, be guaranteed health-care visitation, make decisions about funerals and burials, participate in dependents’ education and ensure visitation in correctional facilities.
Populous Palm Beach, Broward and Orange counties are among the localities with the registries, meaning that more than half of Floridians now live in communities where they can enroll.
“If we can have a domestic partnership registry here, I would like to say that the rest of the state should be thinking about it as well,” said ACLU of Florida Northwest Regional Director Sara Latshaw, who approached Saunders about the ordinance and organized support for it.
Social conservatives discount the significance of the registries, saying they provide rights already granted with the proper legal back-up.
But the steady creep of the local ordinances could provide fodder for courts to overturn the ban on gay marriage, said Florida Family Policy Council President John Stemberger, an Orlando lawyer who spearheaded the Florida Marriage Protection Act put into the constitution by more than 60 percent of voters in 2008.
“I’m very concerned because the issue has nothing to do with these arrangements. It has to do with collective schemes being used as a whole by courts to advance homosexual marriage and other special gay rights. These arrangements are really just completely unnecessary and the crocodile tears shed at these meetings are without merit,” Stemberger said.
Despite the growing support of local governments for domestic partnerships, there’s little chance that the Republican- controlled Legislature will soon follow suit.
A domestic-partnership registry proposal sponsored by Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, received its first vetting in the state Senate this year. The 5-4 committee vote approving the measure, which later went nowhere, was considered a victory.
Saunders sponsored a proposal that would ban discrimination against gay employees. The bill never received a hearing but was co-sponsored by six Republicans. Saunders views that, too, as a win, and said it will be hard for state lawmakers to vote against policies supported by their local communities.
“I don’t think as entrenched as they are they can ignore this shift. Pensacola is the best example we have of the momentum. It doesn’t matter what party you’re in any more. …Eventually the leadership in Tallahassee is going to have to pay attention,” Saunders said.
In a historic June ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, injecting new enthusiasm into the gay marriage movement throughout the country. In Florida, gay rights activists postponed pursuing an effort to put on the November 2014 ballot an initiative that would undo the ban on gay marriage. But they haven’t ruled out a legal challenge to the constitutional ban such as those being fought in other states.
The courts are “counting these ordinances around the country,” Stemberger said. “It’s a piece of the puzzle of what a court does to make decisions they don’t have a basis for in law.
Stemberger argues that the ordinances may mislead gay couples into believing they have rights they aren’t entitled to without proper estate planning or durable powers of attorney.
“I do think it’s harmful to them in a weird sort of way,” he said.
Social conservatives may have stayed mostly on the sidelines about the Pensacola ordinance — no one spoke against the proposal at two public hearings on the issue — but they won’t remain mum about gay marriage or an anti-discrimination law.
The registry “isn’t something to get into a yelling match over,” said Tampa Bay evangelical radio host Bill Bunkley, president of the Florida Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
“The moment you start talking about an active campaign to change the Florida marriage amendment in the constitution as opposed to this registry I suggest you would see all of the robust opposition on the right from social conservatives. There is a distinct difference,” he said.
Stemberger said his organization and others are “going to spend a lot of time and money opposing” anti-gay discrimination laws like the one Saunders is pushing. The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled this summer that a photographer could be liable for refusing to provide service to a gay couple for their same-sex commitment ceremony.
“If I refuse to facilitate as a landlord what I consider to be immoral conduct …I am then faced with a lawsuit because I can’t practice my faith. There’s enormous encroachment upon a private enterprise, a private property,” he said. “It’s one thing to prevent them from doing it. It’s another thing to force them to engage in commerce.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Non-Profits Graduate From United Way’s Training Program
December 22, 2013
The United Way of Escambia County has completed it’s first annual non-profit training series with nine local non-profit agencies and seven non-profit professionals graduating this week from the 12-week program.
Dozens of key community leaders were invited to share their best practices for topics including: essentials of non-profit paperwork, board governance, strategic planning, volunteer management, marketing strategies, grant writing and more.
“We established this series for our non-profit partners who had a desire to build capacity and efficiency within their organizations,” said United Way President and CEO Andrea Krieger said. “”We had been asked several times to start a program like this.”
Among the graduates were Community Action Program Committee, ECARE, Friends of the Pensacola Public Library, Learn to Read, BRACE, Manna Food Pantries, The Global Corner, Pensacola Humane Society and Ministry Village at Olive, Inc.
Alabama Authorities Bust Big Time, Two-State Theft Ring
December 21, 2013
Authorities in Alabama have busted a theft ring responsible for the theft of hundreds of thousand dollars of stolen items that were taken in both Alabama and Florida.
The Escambia County (AL) Sheriff’s Office, law enforcement agencies in Covington County (AL) and other agencies had been investigating the theft ring. Authorities got the break they were looking for Friday morning after they recovered several hundred thousand dollars worth of stolen items during a traffic stop.
Items recovered had been reported stolen from Escambia, Baldwin, Monroe and Mobile counties in Alabama, and Escambia, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties in Florida. Recovered stolen property included four-wheelers, trailers, lawn mowers, go-carts and numerous other items.
Charged were:
- Pete Jimenez, 39, Brewton – three counts of theft of property first degree, two counts of receiving stolen property, two counts of third degree burglary and two counts of second degree theft of property.
- Paul Daw, 19, Brewton — three counts of theft of property first degree, two counts of receiving stolen property, two counts of third degree burglary and two counts of second degree theft of property.
- Joni Diamond, 30, Brewton — three counts of receiving stolen property and hindering prosecution.
- Bobby Thompson, 47, Brewton — four counts of receiving stolen property.
Additional charges are expected against the suspects in both Florida and Alabama, and authorities said additional arrests are possible.
Anyone that may have purchased items from these individuals is asked to contact their local law enforcement agency. No additional details have been released as an investigation continues.
Bill: Tax Collectors Could Accept Concealed Weapons Applications
December 21, 2013
Two Republican lawmakers moved forward this week with a proposal that would allow county tax collectors to accept applications for concealed-weapon or firearms licenses. Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, filed a bill (SB 544) that would make the change, and Rep. James Grant, R-Tampa, also backs the idea in the House.
A news release said the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services currently accepts the applications at eight regional locations, but the bill would address increasing demands.
“(Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam) and his staff are already doing a great job handling a substantial demand from Floridians,” Simpson said in the news release. “With this bill, we empower the commissioner to bring even more convenience and efficiency to the licensing process.” The proposal will be considered during the spring legislative session and, if approved, would take effect July 1.
by The News Service of Florida
Unemployment Rate Steady To Improving Across Area
December 21, 2013
The latest job numbers released Friday show the unemployment level sliding downward or hold steady across the entire three-county North Escambia area — as Florida’s unemployment rate also dropped.
Escambia County’s unemployment held steady at 6.1 percent in from October to November. There were 8,595 people reported unemployed during the period. One year ago, unemployment in Escambia County was 7.9 percent.
Santa Rosa County unemployment fell from 5.5 to 5.4 percent from October to November. Santa Rosa County had a total of 4,007 persons still unemployed. The year-ago unemployment rate in Santa Rosa County was 6.8 percent.
In Escambia County, Alabama, unemployment dropped from 7.9 percent in October to 7.1 percent in November. That represented 978 people unemployed in the county during the month.
Florida’s unemployment rate fell to 6.4 percent in November, down from 6.7 percent in October, the state Department of Economic Opportunity announced Friday.
The mark is the lowest for the state since July 2008 and represents a 1.6 percentage point improvement from a year ago.
Gov. Rick Scott, who announced the monthly numbers while at Full Sail University in Winter Park, credited his policies for the improved marks by highlighting the addition of 6,000 private sector jobs from October to November.
“We’ve cut taxes, made government more efficient and provided more services to families,” Scott said in a prepared statement. “The result: we are creating an opportunity economy that supports more than 446,000 new private sector jobs since December 2010.”
The monthly number keeps Florida below the national unemployment rate, a place it’s been since March.
The national jobless rate for November was 7.0, which also represented a 0.3 percentage point drop since October.
Florida’s seasonally adjusted November numbers estimate that 599,000 Floridians were out of work from a labor force of 9.4 million. The number of jobless is down 27,000 from October.
Slight increases in employment were reported in the fields of manufacturing, education and government, while decreases were seen in construction, financial activities and leisure and hospitality.
State economists have projected unemployment should continue to drop, returning to as low as 6 percent in Florida by 2016 at the latest. However, they also continue to assert that some of the drop is due to people having dropped out of the work force, in addition to new jobs being created in a clearly recovering economy.
Alabama’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, at 6.2 percent in November, was down from October’s rate of 6.4 percent and was below the year-ago rate of 6.9 percent.
The jobless numbers released by Florida and Alabama do not include persons that have given up on finding a job and are no longer reported as unemployed.
Scott Reschedules Muhammad Execution After High Court Ruling
December 21, 2013
After an earlier execution date got postponed because of a legal challenge, Gov. Rick Scott on Friday rescheduled the execution of convicted murderer Askari Abdullah Muhammad for Jan. 7.
The move follows a unanimous Florida Supreme Court ruling on Thursday that the state’s new three-drug cocktail used to execute death row inmates does not violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Muhammad, who was formerly known as Thomas Knight, was initially convicted of kidnapping and killing Sydney and Lillian Gans in 1974. He also escaped from the Dade County Jail while awaiting trial and was involved in a liquor store robbery in Cordele, Ga., where two clerks were shot, with one killed.
On Thursday, the high court lifted a stay imposed Nov. 18 to prevent Muhammad’s execution, which had been scheduled for Dec. 3. Muhammad’s attorneys argued that William Frederick Happ, who was executed in October using a new anesthetic as part of the drug combination, had been conscious for an unusually long time during his execution and moved his head.
But in its ruling, the Supreme Court said the Department of Corrections’ rules for executions call for prisoners to be unconscious before the other drugs are used —- and that it presumed that the agency would follow its own procedures.
He will be put to death for fatally stabbing corrections Officer Richard James Burke with a sharpened spoon in October 1980, while Muhammad, now 62, was already on death row.
by The News Service of Florida
Northview Beats Escambia County (Atmore) In Christmas Tourney
December 21, 2013
The Northview varsity boys continued their winning ways Friday afternoon, with the Chiefs knocking off the Blue Devils of Escambia County (Atmore) High School 80-76 in the Alabama Southern Christmas Tournament.
Leading scorers for the Chiefs were Neino Robinson 30, Tony Mcaroy 19, Eric Williams 11, Cameron Newsome 9, Nick Lambert 7, Dalton Tullis 2.
Church Presents Live Nativity Scene
December 21, 2013
The Friendship Freewill Baptist Church celebrated the season with a live Nativity scene on Highway 31 east of Flomaton near the Country Pine Furniture Store.Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: ‘Twas The Fights Before Christmas
December 21, 2013
‘Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the Capitol
Controversies were brewing, few of them little.
The displays were placed in the lobby with care
In hopes that they could endure a legal scare.
And Weatherford in the House, and Gaetz the Senate
Faced the legal version of a strong, stern tut-tut.
PRETTY PAPER
Groups challenging the constitutionality of the state’s congressional districts must have thought they got an early Christmas gift last week when the Florida Supreme Court ordered that lawmakers would have to testify in a case against the new maps. But this week, they suggested that they also got a lump of coal.
In court filings, the groups asked for documents and testimony explaining why the Legislature might have destroyed records about the 2012 redistricting process that could be relevant to the case. That followed filings by lawyers for the House and Senate that suggested some of the papers the League of Women Voters of Florida and its allies were looking for might not be there.
“In strict compliance with these written record-retention policies, legislative records, including records related to congressional redistricting, were sometimes, and appropriately, discarded,” lawyers for the Legislature wrote. “The legislative parties are without knowledge of the facts and circumstances of particular communications.”
- The argument from lawmakers was, essentially, that any record not protected by law is subject to the rules set out each term by the House and the Senate. None of the records that the Legislature must preserve were destroyed, but some of the documents that weren’t specifically protected might have been.
Needless to say, groups opposed to the maps were not filled with Christmas cheer by the revelation.
“After all the public comments by legislators expressing their belief that litigation was inevitable, the admission that any redistricting records were destroyed should have Florida voters up in arms,” said Deirdre Macnab, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida. “Today’s disclosure is just another example of those in charge abusing their power and then hiding behind the lame excuse that they didn’t know what they were doing.”
House Speaker Will Weatherford countered by adamantly denying that his chamber had been naughty.
“Any accusation that the Florida House of Representative thwarted the law and destroyed documents is completely false,” said Weatherford, a Wesley Chapel Republican who chaired the House committee that drew the lines in 2012. “We not only complied with the letter and the spirit of the public record laws and longstanding House rules, but also went above and beyond those standards when it came to redistricting.”
DECK THE HALLS
Meanwhile, the fighting over what can and can’t go up in the Capitol lobby to mark the holidays raged through yet another week, with the Department of Management Services finally finding an example of what was not welcome at the parade.
It took awhile to get that far. After all, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster — more often associated with opposition to the introduction of creationism and intelligent design as science in public schools — was allowed to put up an office desk chair to hold the pseudo-church’s pseudo-deity. (Or a representation thereof, made out of shredded papers that were presumably not destroyed redistricting records.)
The supernatural spaghetti followed a “Festivus” pole of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans put up by South Florida political blogger Chaz Stevens and season signs from the Tallahassee Atheists, The American Atheists Florida Regional Directors and the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation.
All of them were a protest against a nativity scene put up by a Christian group, which drew new attention to holiday decorations at the Capitol. A large menorah has been displayed for years to mark Hanukkah without much controversy.
But Satanists — or at least those claiming to be Satanists — need not apply for space in the Capitol. DMS rejected as “grossly offensive” a display that showed an angel falling into hell.
Department administrative assistant Sherrie K. Routt late Wednesday emailed a denial to the New York-based Satanic Temple that said “the department’s position is that your proposed display is grossly offensive during the holiday season.”
Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the temple, said in an email that his group is giving the department a short time to clarify the offensive nature of the display and to see if some compromise could be worked out before considering legal action.
“It seems unthinkable that the DMS should be presuming negative value judgments upon our very religion itself, engaging in blatant viewpoint discrimination, so we must assume that there is something tangible about the content of the display that is demonstrably astray from established community standards,” Greaves said.
This isn’t Florida first encounter with the temple, which has also been pressing Oklahoma to erect a Satanic monument outside the Oklahoma State Capitol.
Last January, the “Satanists” drew about six of the self-professed devil worshippers to the steps of the Old Capitol for what they said was an event to praise Gov. Rick Scott — but that was reported to be part of an effort to make a fake documentary.
SEXUAL PREDATOR LEGISLATION
There was nothing festive about the highest profile legislation to be filed this week: a package of bills that Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said would make the state “scorched earth” for sexually violent predators.
The bills are expected to be a centerpiece of the 2014 session after the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported in August that nearly 600 sexual predators had been released only to be convicted of new sex offenses — including more than 460 child molestations, 121 rapes and 14 murders.
“Over the last several months, we watched in disbelief and disgust as news accounts detailed stories of sexually violent predators slipping through the cracks of our criminal justice and civil commitment system and committing unthinkable repeat offenses against Florida’s most vulnerable children,” Gaetz wrote to senators as the four bills were filed.
The bills are meant in part to strengthen the Jimmy Ryce Act — named for a 9-year-old Miami-Dade County boy who was raped and murdered in 1995 — which requires the Department of Children and Families to evaluate sex offenders before their releases from prison. Those considered most likely to attack may be screened, evaluated and confined at the Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia until they aren’t considered dangers to the community.
SB 526 by Sen. Rob Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican and chairman of the Senate Civil and Criminal Justice Appropriations Subcommittee, would increase the length of sentences for certain adult-on-minor sexual offenses formerly classified as lewd and lascivious. It would ban reduced sentences for good behavior for people who commit certain sexual offenses and require courts to order community supervision after release from prison for those convicted of certain offenses.
Bradley’s bill would also require sexual predators to be under community supervision after their release from civil commitment. Currently, those offenders participate in civil commitment and community supervision simultaneously. But the bill would require them to be under community supervision after their release from civil commitment.
Other bills filed included a measure (SB 528) by Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, that would require registered sexual predators to report their vehicle information, Internet identifiers, palm prints, passports, professional licenses, immigration status and volunteer work at higher-education institutions; a bill (SB 522) by Sen. Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, that would require sheriffs to refer prisoners serving sentences in county jails for civil commitment if they are registered sexual offenders or predators and have committed sexually violent offenses; and SB 524 by Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, which would require that offenders be defined as sexually violent predators and be subject to civil confinement after a finding by two or more members of a multidisciplinary team.
The House also appeared to be on board with a push on the laws in 2014.
“If we have the strongest laws in place in the country to identify the worst of the worst, I think we can reduce the number of these offenses,” said House Criminal Justice Chairman Matt Gaetz, a Fort Walton Beach Republican who is the son of the Senate president. “And most importantly, we won’t have to go and say to the parents of a child victim that we had the person in our custody, but we let them go and they harmed again.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: A coalition of groups opposed to the state’s new congressional districts demanded answers after a legal filing by the Legislature appeared to indicate that some records from the 2012 redistricting process were destroyed.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I think the seventh time is the charm.” Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood and chairwoman of the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee, on a proposed statewide domestic-partnership registry that would give gay — and straight — couples some of the same rights as their married cohorts.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
DOJ Presents Settlement In Escambia Jail Investigation
December 20, 2013
Escambia County has received an initial draft of a proposed consent agreement from the U.S. Department of Justice in the DOJ’s investigation into the Escambia County Jail.
Escambia County staff is reviewing the proposal and will begin internal discussions regarding a recommended counter proposal to the DOJ, the county said in a news release Thursday afternoon.
The draft of the proposed consent agreement will be placed on the January 2 Board of County Commissioners Agenda for discussion.
A DOJ report released in May found that conditions inside the Escambia County Jail routinely violate the constitutional rights of prisoners.
The DOJ concluded that known systemic deficiencies at the jail, mainly due to staffing shortages, continue to subject prisoners to excessive risk of assault by other prisoners and to “clearly inadequate” mental health care.
The five-year investigation also found that until recently, the jail had an informal policy and practice of designating some of its housing units as only for African-American prisoners. By segregating some of its prisoners on the basis of race, the jail not only stigmatized and discriminated against many of its African-American prisoners, it also fanned combustible racial tensions within the jail.
The report became a focal point between the county commission and Sheriff David Morgan with battles ensuing over how to respond to the report and budgeting issues with taking recommended actions. The Escambia County Commission eventually voted to take control of the jail of the sheriff and directly respond to the DOJ report.
The DOJ proposed consent degree spells out, in a 28 page document, requirements for the county to fully staff the jail, eventually hiring 100 more employees. Goals would be put in place aimed at reducing violence among prisoners, paying closer attention to mental health issues and assurance that the jail remain desegregated.
To read the complete DOJ proposed consent agreement, click here.
