Judge orders one Alabama official to start gay marriages. Will others follow?

After a week of conflicting legal arguments, confusion, and open defiance in Alabama, a federal judge rules that a Mobile probate judge may not deny same-sex couples a marriage license. 

|
Sharon Steinmann/AL.com/AP
Mobile Probate Court chief of staff Mike Erwin announces on Tuesday that windows will remain closed at the Mobile County Probate office in Mobile, Ala. On Thursday, US District Judge Callie Granade ordered Don Davis, the probate judge in Mobile, to open his office and start issuing licenses.

A federal judge in Alabama on Thursday ordered a probate judge in Mobile to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but it remains unclear how broadly her order will apply in a state that is still largely in a defiant posture concerning same-sex marriages.

United States District Judge Callie Granade ordered Don Davis, the probate judge in Mobile, to open his office and start issuing licenses.

“Probate Judge Don Davis is hereby enjoined from refusing to issue marriage licenses to plaintiffs due to the Alabama laws which prohibit same-sex marriages,” the judge wrote in an eight-page order.

“If plaintiffs take all steps that are required in the normal course of business as a prerequisite to issuing a marriage license to opposite-sex couples, Judge Davis may not deny them a license,” Judge Granade said.

The action comes amid a week of conflicting legal arguments, confusion, and open defiance among officials in Alabama after a ruling by Judge Granade striking down the state’s ban on same-sex marriages took effect on Monday.

Despite the ruling, most of the state’s probate judges, who issue marriage licenses in each county, are refusing to begin providing licenses to gay men and lesbians wishing to marry. Some simply closed their offices and refused to issue any licenses at all.

In contrast, probate judges in 23 Alabama counties voluntarily started issuing licenses without regard to the sexual orientation of applicants.

Those refusing to issue licenses have cited an order issued by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore the day before the federal ruling was to take effect.

On Sunday, Chief Justice Moore ordered Alabama probate judges to uphold Alabama law, rather than the federal decision.

The chief justice noted that the federal lawsuit challenging Alabama’s marriage laws named the state’s attorney general, Luther Strange, as the sole defendant. He said the federal courts had no jurisdiction to order any probate judge to comply with its decision, since no probate judge was named as a defendant in the underlying lawsuit.

Lawyers for four same-sex couples in Mobile sought to correct that deficiency on Monday by amending their complaint to include Davis as a defendant.

With Davis as a defendant in the lawsuit, Judge Granade on Thursday was able to exert jurisdiction over him and order him to begin issuing marriage licenses.

The legal gymnastics were necessary in part because the federal appeals court, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, has not yet ruled on the merits of Judge Granade’s decision. Such a ruling would establish binding precedent throughout all three federal districts in Alabama.

Granade’s decision last month invalidated Alabama’s marriage law and a state constitutional amendment that defined marriage as “inherently a unique relationship between a man and a woman.”

Granade concluded that Alabama’s marriage definition violated a fundamental right under the US Constitution for same-sex couples to marry. She also ruled that it violated their constitutional right to equal treatment.

Alabama officials had asked both the appeals court and the US Supreme Court to stay the decision until the merits of the case should be litigated – or at least until the US Supreme Court decides four pending same-sex marriage cases raising the same issues.

Both the appeals court and the Supreme Court declined to issue a stay.

Judge Granade’s injunction only applies to Davis. It is possible that other same-sex couples will have to file lawsuits naming other probate judges as defendants to force them to issue licenses to same-sex couples.

It also possible that state officials may recognize that Judge Granade’s decision is based on an interpretation of the US Constitution, which binds all public officials – state, local and national. In that sense, probate judges may voluntarily comply with the principles expressed in Granade’s decision.

“Today’s ruling by Judge Granade provides clear direction to Judge Davis and other probate judges and will help ensure that all same-sex couples in Alabama, regardless of where they live, have the freedom to marry,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, in a statement.

According to the gay rights organization Human Rights Campaign, on Thursday afternoon prior to the ruling, 23 county probate judges were issuing marriages licenses to all couples, 18 were only issuing licenses to heterosexual couples, and 26 – including Mobile – were refusing to issue any licenses.

Granade’s order should, at a minimum, reduce that last number from 26 to 25.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Judge orders one Alabama official to start gay marriages. Will others follow?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0212/Judge-orders-one-Alabama-official-to-start-gay-marriages.-Will-others-follow
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe