Alabama Supreme Court Halts Same-Sex Marriages

Last night, in a 7-1 ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court forbade probate judges in that state from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, citing as precedent Alabama laws dating back to 1823. There's nothing wrong with examining historical precedent - but enlightened minds have progressed a little further since then. WIAT in Birmingham reports:




Freedom to Marry summarizes the legal implications of the Court's ruling:

What does the Alabama Supreme Court ruling do?
•The Alabama Supreme Court has ordered four probate judges - Jefferson County's Alan L. King (Jefferson County), Chilton County's Robert M. Martin, Madison County's Tommy Ragland, and Montgomery County's Steven L. Reed to immediately stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples
•62 other probate judges in Alabama - all except for Mobile probate judge Don Davis, who was specifically enjoined from enforcing Alabama's marriage ban by federal court order - are temporarily orderd to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Each judge has five days to respond explaining why they should be issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
•Judge Davis of Mobile is ordered to file a response by Thursday explaining whether he believes the federal court order requires him to issue marriage licenses to any same-sex couples besides the four couples involved in the Strawser case, brought by same-sex couples and the National Center for Lesbian Rights

What DOESN'T the Alabama Supreme Court ruling do?
•The Alabama Supreme Court ruling does NOT call into question the hundreds of marriage licenses that have been issued in Alabama since February 9, 2015. These couples are married - and their marriage licenses are valid. The state must respect these licenses issued under guidance from a federal judge, from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and from the United States Supreme Court.
•The ruling is NOT a permanent decision, but rather a last-ditch attempt to delay the freedom to marry. It is a temporary, unnecessary pause that does nothing but damage the thousands of same-sex couples and their families in the state of Alabama.
•Above all, the ruling does NOT mean that the fight for the freedom to marry in Alabama is over. We will continue fighting - we must continue fighting - to show not only other federal judges that the Alabama Supreme Court is on the wrong side of history, but also the United States Supreme Court that Alabama is READY for the freedom to marry once and for all.

Full text of the ruling here.

The ruling runs on at great length about marriage being for procreation; yet even as it does so, the animus of the Court is patently obvious. I have a cousin who was raised a few miles from the Alabama line. She is now nearly 70 and has been married three times. She has never had any children, and never wanted to. Yet the oh-so-Christian people of the Southland don't blink an eye at her right to marry, or to marry as many times as she pleases.

On the other side of my family, I have another cousin who is a widow, her husband having died several years ago just after their 50th wedding anniversary. They did have children, and now grandchildren. But she is long past the age of childbearing - yet, if she took a notion to marry again, the good Christian people of her community would not bat an eyelash.

Your Head Trucker is actually a bit tired of hearing about gay marriage now, after all this long time of debate and controversy - but I'm even more tired of being told, in acts if not in words, Go to hell, you dirty faggot, we don't want your kind around here.

Aren't you?