What a travesty. The Alabama Supreme Court has rushed out a "per curiam" decision (one none of the members of that court would admit to authoring) ordering probate judges not to marry same-sex couples in the state without even providing for full briefing on the constitutional rights of same-sex couples and their families.
The federal judge who initially struck down Alabama’s discriminatory marriage ban, extended her order directing Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In yesterday's order, Judge Granade wrote:
Lambda Legal sent an open letter to the President of the Alabama Probate Judges Association and probate judges of counties that are not issuing licenses to same-sex couples urging them to disregard Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s legally incorrect and unfounded Administrative Order and instead issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and different-sex couples alike, after the U.S.
In two separate rulings, a federal judge in Alabama struck down the state’s discriminatory marriage ban, prompting a brazenly political and deeply misguided response from the Chief Justice of Alabama’s highest court.
The U.S. Supreme Court today allowed marriage case decisions from the Seventh Circuit, Fourth Circuit and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeal to stand meaning that same-sex couples in five more states Indiana, Wisconsin, Virginia, Utah and Oklahoma will be able to marry – perhaps as soon as later today.
In a brazen and unprecedented political move, Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court — who was reelected a year ago after being removed from the bench in 2003 for defying a federal court order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from his courtroom — inserted himself into the fight for the freedom to marry.
At Lambda Legal's annual Lawrence Breakfast in Houston tomorrow, the Walker County Honorary Committee will honor Lambda Legal with their James E. Chaney Freedom Prize.