Will Florida Become Deep South’s Prime Gay Wedding Destination?

YULEE, Fla. (AP) — With happy matrimony now authorised in Florida, same-sex couples from around a Deep South crossed a limit Tuesday as a Sunshine State became a primary informal end for happy and lesbian weddings still criminialized behind home.

Out-of-state couples lined adult outward county courthouses early Tuesday in a Panhandle and northern Florida counties. Some gathering for hours to get matrimony licenses during a initial opportunity.

“As shortly as we listened about a statute we flattering most motionless on a humour to come yesterday,” conspicuous Scott Singletary, 22. “We wanted to make certain to do it as shortly as possible, in box (the law) changed.”

On that point, Florida’s happy and lesbian weddings seem some-more secure than a initial same-sex joining hold years ago in other states.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a ask by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to say a state’s matrimony anathema until a final resolution. After she was sworn in to a second tenure on Tuesday, Bondi conspicuous her tip attorneys are reviewing either to continue a state’s appeal.

Singletary and Dustyn Batten, 23, of Waycross, Georgia, woke before emergence to make a scarcely two-hour expostulate into Florida’s Nassau County. They had been formulation a joining rite in Jacksonville, yet were anxious to learn they could indeed get married now that Florida’s happy matrimony anathema was lifted.

Walt Disney World and other tip Florida destinations have charity joining rite packages for years, yet matrimony planners, and hotels and resorts are intuiting a new tourism bang with some-more couples wanting weddings.

“I’ve been fielding a ton of calls from out of state,” conspicuous Rachel McMurray, a protected matrimony officiant who married a lesbian integrate on Jacksonville’s building stairs Tuesday. “Even if their state doesn’t commend a marriage, it gives them a clarity of legitimacy.”

“My phone’s been floating up,” conspicuous Shanie McCowen, who owns Rainbow Bells, a matrimony formulation association in Boca Raton. She conspicuous she routinely gets 4 or 5 matrimony inquiries a week, yet fielded about 30 on Sunday and Monday alone, and now expects some-more business from Georgia and Alabama.

County tourism play have already altered their advertising: “Finally we all do” is a title on Broward’s tourism home page, over a design of a happy integrate in matrimony clothes on a beach.

Thirty-six states, including 70 percent of a nation’s population, now concede happy marriage. From South Carolina adult a East Coast, justice rulings and legislatures have gradually non-stop a doorway to same-sex weddings.

Not so in a rest of a South: Gays and lesbians are still denied matrimony rights in a swath of states from Texas to Georgia as good as Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Robert Lewis, 70, and Duber Gomez-Fonseca, 37, together for 9 years, rolled in from Jackson, Mississippi, to wed, even yet their home state won’t commend their bond. “Hopefully it will only be a matter of months before all 50 states do this,” Lewis conspicuous as they assimilated dozens of couples outward a Escambia County building in Florida’s Panhandle.

St. Petersburg already hosts a largest happy honour march south of Atlanta, yet tourism officials are saying an boost in hotels and resorts charity happy matrimony packages there. David Downing, halt executive executive of Visit St. Pete Clearwater, conspicuous that LGBT “imagery” has been blended into ad campaigns they run in New York and Chicago.

“It’s a really nuanced message. It’s a really worldly throng that can spot out inauthenticity a mile away,” he said.

The executive house of a International Gay and Lesbian Tourism Association happens to be assembly in St. Petersburg this week, and can see for themselves that “this is a good end for weddings, be they true weddings or happy weddings,” conspicuous Downing.

“Our concentration is on a experience. We’re revelation a many constituencies, this is who we are. We’re inclusive. We acquire everybody.”

The same can't be conspicuous about everybody in Florida. Officials in Jacksonville’s Duval County, Panhandle counties nearby Escambia and a handful of others conspicuous they will emanate matrimony licenses as compulsory by law, yet will no longer yield building matrimony ceremonies, to equivocate creation some heterosexuals uncomfortable.

That didn’t stop Cassie Rogers, 41, and Jennifer Royael, 38, from carrying a building matrimony in Jacksonville.

With froth floating and crowds gawking, a Clearwater, Florida, integrate attired in teal dresses beamed with tear-stained cheeks as McMurray conspicuous them “wife and wife.”

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Nelson-Gabriel reported from Pensacola. Associated Press reporters Tamara Lush in St. Petersburg and Matt Sedensky in West Palm Beach also contributed to this report.

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/06/florida-gay-destination-weddings_n_6425646.html?utm_hp_ref=miami&ir=Miami