News - July 2015 RSS Feed

The annual Florida Respect Life Conference is scheduled for October 23-24, 2015. The event theme, Every Life is Worth Living, keeps with Church teaching that all human life has dignity and is to be protected.

Three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a right to marry, the State of Florida filed a motion for dismissal in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a federal case challenging the constitutionality of Florida's definition of marriage as solely between a man and a woman.

On Thursday, July 16, the U.S. Senate passed the Every Child Achieves Act (S. 1177) on a 81-17 vote. This bill reauthorizes the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and is similar to the Student Success Act (H.R. 5) that passed the U.S. House of Representatives on July 8.

During the 2015 Florida Legislative Session, lawmakers passed HB 633 that provided women 24 hours to reflect before obtaining an abortion.

On July 9, the Florida Supreme Court ruled in a 5-2 decision that eight of Florida's 27 congressional districts violated a 2010 constitutional amendment aimed at preventing gerrymandering. A legal challenge claimed that legislators violated the state Constitution during the 2012 redistricting process, the once-a-decade reapportionment that follows every Census.