LGBTQ+ advocates will celebrate the 10th anniversary of marriage equality in Florida on Sunday, January 5, in Miami Beach in an event to include the couples and the attorneys who successfully sued in court to overturn the longstanding gay-marriage ban.
On January, 5, 2015, Miami-Dade County became the first locale in Florida to allow same-sex couples to marry after the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was ruled unconstitutional.
SAVE and Equality Florida are hosting Sunday’s event at St. John's on the Lake in Miami Beach, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
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Todd Delmay, Executive Director of SAVE and a plaintiff in the original marriage equality case, says same-sex marriage supporters must continue to remain vigilant in protecting the law.
“So finally winning the legal cases should have been the last word in bringing the decades-long fight for marriage equality to an end,” said Delmay. “Ten years later though, this celebration occurs amidst the uncomfortable reality that there are those who now seek to overturn it, just as other rights once considered to be settled law have fallen.
“Celebrating this milestone anniversary must therefore also be a time of resolve to recommit ourselves and our community to doing whatever it takes to ensure marriage equality remains our essential right,” he added.
Same-sex marriages became legal nationwide in 2015 with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, but there are concerns in the wake of the high court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade that something similar may happen to the legality of same-sex unions.
Learn more here about Sunday's celebration.