Trailblazer Jeff Delmay '00 advocates for LGTBQ+ rights in a state of erosion.
JEFF DELMAY ’00 and his husband are perhaps best known as faces of the fight for marriage equality in Florida — participating as one of six same-sex couples who were plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the State of Florida’s gay marriage ban and then becoming the first same-sex couple to legally marry in the state.
Today, Delmay continues to advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, leading the Board of Equality Florida as co-chair, fundraising, volunteering and organizing community events. “Equality Florida is very LGTBQ+ focused obviously, but within that, we’re really focused on racial equity, trans rights, reproductive rights — those things that are being most attacked right now in our government and in our communities — and we’re being vigilant,” Delmay says.
And it all started with his hospitality training, beginning with his education at Johnson & Wales University. Delmay graduated with his bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management in 2000 from the North Miami Campus and found his niche in sales and events — working in Conference and Group Sales roles for South Florida hotels before joining his now-husband to help grow their event management business.
Whether he’s organizing events at hotels for clients of their firm, Delmay Corporation, or orchestrating the venue logistics of fundraisers for Equality Florida, his hospitality experience runs through his veins and helps him remain unflappable in the face of challenges.
Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, says Delmay has been generous with his knowledge of the hospitality industry by working with hotels to host fundraisers for Equality Florida, which holds close to a dozen annual events across the state. Those industry relationships and Delmay’s calm, collected demeanor were particularly helpful at the start of the pandemic.
“Suddenly we’re having to navigate contracts with venues where we could no longer gather, and his insights on how to work with venues was invaluable in helping us find a reasonable way of accommodating what COVID-19 had created for us,” she says.
From Couple to Coworkers
Though they’ve been legally married for less than a decade, Jeff and Todd Delmay celebrated their 20th anniversary as a couple this year and they’ve been living, working and parenting alongside each other for the last 13 years.
When Jeff and Todd started dating, Todd owned a travel agency. As he transitioned the business to focus more on events with hotels (Jeff’s specialty), Todd invited Jeff to join him as a business partner.
For Jeff, moving away from the 24/7 nature of working in hotels opened up more time for volunteering. “I started to network and attend events with local LGBTQ organizations. That’s when I really started to understand that there’s a lot of work that gets done behind the scenes to protect and fight for our rights,” he says.
Delmay Family Is Born
Not long after going into business together, the couple decided they wanted to have a family and began looking into surrogacy. That’s when a perfectly timed opportunity came to adopt a son from a pregnant family member who had planned to put the baby up for adoption.
Same-sex adoption was illegal at the time, but a family law attorney helped the couple navigate the situation. Jeff, as the blood relative, formally adopted the child as a single parent, while Todd was forced to blend into the background at the adoption hearing. The couple had to compile a binder’s worth of legal documents to establish shared parental rights that didn’t exist automatically.
Jeff and Todd were able to legally change their last names just days before Blake’s birth, and Blake was given the last name Delmay on his birth certificate — a blend of their given names, Jeff Delsol and Todd May.
“It was really important that we show that we’re a family in whatever way that is, so even if people would question our family unit because they’re against it, there’s no denying that we have the same last name and this is our child,” Jeff says.
The couple celebrated with three baby showers leading up to the occasion — one with friends and family, one hosted by their business colleagues and community, and a “gay-by shower” with their LGBTQ friends.
It was really important that we show that we’re a family in whatever way that is, so even if people would question our family unit because they’re against it, there’s no denying that we have the same last name and this is our child.Jeff Delmay '00
The Meaning of Marriage
In 2014, Jeff and Todd were approached by the National Center for Lesbian Rights to be a part of a marriage equality lawsuit challenging Florida’s ban by suing the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts in State Court.
The process involved applying for a marriage license, and being then denied — to showcase themselves as an example of a same-sex couple who wanted to marry but couldn’t legally do so in the state of Florida.
People would ask Jeff how he was so willing to sacrifice his privacy and his time. “We started to recognize how important it was not only to us, but to the community,” Jeff says. “What came to mind was all the people who sacrificed for me in the generations before — not only the LGBTQ community, but people of color. Black men and women who fought for my rights as a Black person to be able to vote, to be able to have common rights and equality. I recognized I have a purpose in the advocacy world.”
In her role as executive director of Equality Florida, Smith saw how Jeff and Todd were willing to stand in the spotlight and tell their love story — and what it meant to them as parents to have legal protections for their child.
“The honesty with which they told their story moved people on the issue,” she says. “Jeff is willing to do the hard work of being his authentic self, even in places where it doesn’t always feel safe.”
Almost a year later, on Jan. 5, 2015, a Miami-Dade circuit judge lifted her stay on the decision striking down Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage. She then wed Jeff and Todd (along with another couple from the case) in her chambers that same day — making them the first same-sex couples ever to marry in Florida. The newlyweds emerged on the court steps, hands raised high like Rocky Balboa, with news crews snapping photo after photo.
When their son Blake, who was four at the time, got home from school later that day, they shared the news and asked Blake how he wanted to celebrate. “He wanted to go to the park, and we just played and had dinner together as a family,” Todd says. “It was the most mundane and the most magical night.”
For Jeff, who loves to plan a good party, the true celebration came a year later when they had their actual wedding surrounded by loved ones.
"It was something I always wanted to do but never thought could happen," Jeff says. “We’d had a commitment ceremony, but it wasn’t the same as each of our younger brothers’ weddings, who both married women. So to plan and have a wedding with all the people we care about — who supported us — that was the best part.”