Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT rights advocacy group, recently released its annual Municipal Equality Index. The Index serves as an evaluation of protections, benefits and services offered to LGBT people at the municipal level. Tampa received a score of 89 out of a possible 100 — a huge jump up from its score of 66 in last year’s survey.

Tampa has been recognized for its non-discrimination policies in housing and employment for the past two years. But until recently, Tampa’s score suffered for its lack of protections for transgender people and for its lack of requirements for municipal contractors to offer employment protection to LGBT individuals.

Another advocacy group, Equality Florida, recently issued a press release calling Florida “the new frontline” for gay rights in the South. The release recognized the quickly changing political landscape in the state, and it outlined three changes the group hopes to help achieve in Florida within the next three years.

The first is gay marriage. In 2008, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, civil unions and domestic partnerships. Equality Florida says it is preparing to file a lawsuit to overturn the ban. The second goal strives for LGBT protections in employment, housing and public accommodations. In 30 states, U.S. law allows employers to fire employees for their sexual orientation. Third, the group plans to boost support to local initiatives to protect gay rights at the city and county level.

Advocacy groups will need some help from state lawmakers if they want to accomplish all their goals. Fortunately for them, Democrats in the Florida Senate are already advancing a number of civil rights bills for 2014, including protections against discrimination in housing, employment and banking.
Another measure would establish a statewide domestic partnership registry, similar to those already in place in Tampa, Clearwater and St. Petersburg. These registries, available to both same-sex and opposite-sex unmarried couples, ensure a host of legal protections that are automatically granted to married couples. These protections include the authority to make decisions regarding child care, health care and after-death care.

Equal protection for all Floridians under the law has not yet been achieved, but the work of lawmakers and advocacy groups has brought the goal much closer.

Contact a Tampa divorce lawyer and Brandon child custody attorney with the Osenton Law Offices, P.A. To learn more, visit http://www.brandonlawoffice.com/

According to bill sponsor state Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, the law would have prevented Americans from having their rights violated by foreign law. Gov. Rick Scott released a statement in support of the bill, saying it would make it clear that citizens’ constitutional rights would be protected. However, opponents maintained that the bill was unnecessary because rights and protections are already directly guaranteed by the U.S. and Florida Constitutions.

Opponents of the bill were also concerned that it would tarnish Florida’s reputation as a center for international dispute resolution and unnecessarily complicate Florida divorces for foreign couples residing in the state, for instance if the couple had an antenuptial agreement holding that foreign law would apply in the event of a divorce.

The bill was opposed by the American Bar Association, the International Law Section of the Florida Bar, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Civil Liberties Union, and several other civic, religious and professional organizations.

Contact a Jacksonville divorce lawyer with Richard D. Zasada, LLC or visit http://www.zasadalaw.com/

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In a letter to state legislators who worked on the bill, Scott wrote that the proposed legislation had many forward-looking elements, but that alimony remained an important judicial remedy to provide support for families after a divorce. Scott objected to the fact that the bill would have applied retroactively and would thus affect the settled economic expectations of many divorced Floridians, with potentially unfair results.

In issuing his veto, Scott wrote that the law in Florida already provides for alimony adjustment under the right circumstances.

Under the proposed legislation, limits would have been set on the amount of alimony, it would be harder to obtain for shorter marriages, and alimony payments would not last longer than half of the time the spouses had been married. The bill also would have required judges to award equal child custody to divorced parents, except in unusual circumstances.

The bill had strong bipartisan support in both the Florida Senate and House.

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