Attorney General Pam Bondi is opposing a bid by a gay South Florida woman to obtain a divorce from her former partner.

Bondi's office filed papers late Wednesday in Broward County Circuit Court saying a judge should not grant Heather Brassner's petition for a divorce from Megan Lade. The couple was united in a 2002 civil union in Vermont but broke up several years ago.

Among other things, the attorney general's filing says a civil union is not the same as a marriage and should not be the basis to declare Florida's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.

Bondi has defended the ban enacted by voters in 2008 in several state and federal lawsuits in which judges have ruled it violates constitutional equal protection guarantees. Those rulings have all been appealed.