Posts Tagged As: Pam Bondi

Anderson Cooper Fires Back At Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi

Jim Burroway

June 16th, 2016

Screen Shot 2016-06-16 at 9.59.11 AMOn Tuesday, Anderson Cooper held Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi accountable for her years of opposition to marriage equality, and he took particular issue with her argument that allowing gays to marry in Florida would “impose significant public harm”. Bondi’s prominent media presence in the aftermath of the Pulse gay night club massacre presenting herself as a valiant defender of the LGBT community, has raised eyebrows in the LGBT community that remembers her previously strenuous efforts to block same-sex message. Since then, Bondi has been more or less pretending she was never involved in that fight.

Yesterday, Bondi was on WOR’s “Len Berman and Todd Schnitt in the Morning”  complaining that she was blindsided by Cooper’s grilling on her same-sex marriage stance and that “completely flipped and got into a constitutional issue of course.” She also said that Cooper’s questions were out of line and that she was asked to speak with him on the air under false pretences. “The interview was supposed to be about helping people’s families, not creating more anger and havoc and hatred yesterday. Yesterday was about unity, about bringing people together, about helping people.”

Yesterday, Cooper responded to Bondi’s allegations:

…She’s either mistaken or she’s not telling the truth. Let’s be real here. Miss Bondi’s big complaint seems to be that I asked in the first place, in the wake of a massacre that targeted gay and lesbian citizens about her new statements about the gay community and about her old ones.

…For the record, my interview was not filled with any anger. I was respectful before the interview, I was respectful during the interview and I was respectful after the interview. I don’t know Pam Bondi personally, she seems like a nice person actually. I don’t think she has hate in her heart.

But what I think doesn’t matter. Its my job to hold people accountable. If on Sunday a politician was talking love and embracing quote “our LGBT community,” I don’t think it’s unfair to look at their record and see if they have actually ever spoken that way publicly before which I never heard her say.

The fact is, Attorney General Bondi signed off on a 2014 federal court brief that claimed married gay people would pose ‘significant public harm’. Harm. She spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money. Gay and straight taxpayers money, trying to keep gays and lesbians from getting the right to marry. Now look, good people can and do disagree on that issue. everyone has a right to their own opinion thank goodness. But Ms. Bondi is championing right now her efforts to help survivors but the very right which allows gay spouses to bury their dead loved ones – that’s a right that would not exist if Ms Bondi had had her way. I think it’s fair to ask her about that. There is an irony in that.

Here is that brief Cooper mentioned (PDF: 131KB/34 pages):

Governor Rick Scott, Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi, State Surgeon General John H. Armstrong, and Secretary Craig J. Nichols (the “State Officials”), pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b), move to dismiss the amended complaints in these consolidated cases. This Court lacks jurisdiction to consider the claims against all but the DMS Secretary, and all claims fail on the merits. The Court should also deny the preliminary injunction motions because there is no likelihood of success on the merits, there is no immediacy requiring a preliminary injunction, and disrupting Florida’s existing marriage laws would impose significant public harm.

…This Court also must balance the alleged harm to the parties against the public interest. An injunction would irreparably harm the State of Florida. Plaintiffs seek to enjoin a duly enacted constitutional amendment and statutory law. Enjoining democratically enacted legislation harms state officials by restraining them from implementing the will of the people that they represent. [Emphasis mine]

And by the way, I still can’t find Bondi’s “rainbow hands” here, here, or here.

    

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