The Alabama supreme court has ordered the state’s probate judges to stop issuing marriage licences to gay couples, saying a previous federal ruling that gay marriage bans violate the US constitution did not preclude them from following state law, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
The all-Republican court in Montgomery on Tuesday sided with the argument offered by a pair of conservative organisations, appealing against a decision by US district judge Callie Granade of Mobile, who ruled in January that both Alabama’s constitutional and statutory bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional.
It was not immediately clear what impact the latest ruling would have, or whether it would stand. While a six-member majority of the nine-member court did not explicitly invalidate the marriages of hundreds of same-sex couples who obtained licences in the state in recent weeks, the decision used the term “purported” to describe those licences.
The court’s most outspoken opponent of gay marriage, Chief Justice Roy Moore, disqualified himself from the case and did not take part in the writing of the unsigned 134-page decision.
After Granade’s ruling, Moore told probate judges across the state not to issue same-sex marriage licences. His stance created widespread confusion, prompting some judges to refuse to issue the licences and others to shut their operations for all couples, gay and straight, until they could get a clear answer. Some, however, decided to issue the licences.
Of the other judges on Alabama’s high court, one agreed with the ruling while citing some reservations, and one, Justice Greg Shaw, dissented.
In his dissent, Shaw said it was “unfortunate” that federal courts refused to delay gay marriage in the state until the US supreme court could settle the issue nationally. But, Shaw said, the state supreme court did not have the power to consider the issue and was creating more confusion by “venturing into uncharted waters” outside its jurisdiction.
Read the entire story at: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/04/alabama-judges-halt-same-sex-marriages?CMP=ema_565
