Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore
So, I have already told you about Alabama state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore’s temper tantrum over marriage equality and how he is just gonna hold his breath til he turns blue or the big bad gay people go away.
But the same-sex couples in Alabama who want state officials to abide by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision not to extend a stay on a lower court ruling overturning the state’s marriage equality ban aren’t going away and giving up.
In fact, the National Center for Lesbian Rights reported today (Tuesday, Feb. 10), that four same-sex couples in Mobile asked District Judge Ginny Granade — the judge who issued TWO rulings last month overturning the Alabama marriage ban — to instruct Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis to issue them marriage licenses.
Davis has stopped issuing marriage licenses entirely rather than issue licenses to same-sex couples. Mobile County is one of 47 of the state’s 67 counties where the probate judges are following Moore’s orders and not issuing licenses to same-sex couples.
In their request to Judge Granade, the couples explained that each of them appeared at the Davis’s Mobile offices and were denied marriage licenses, and they say they are suffering serious harm each day that they continue to be excluded from marriage.
The Alabama couples — represented by NCLR, Birmingham attorney Heather Fann and the ACLU of Alabama — include James Strawser and John Humphrey, who previously obtained a ruling from Judge Granade declaring that Alabama’s exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage is unconstitutional.
The other three couples are Meredith Miller and Anna Lisa Carmichael, Robert Povilat and Milton Persinger, and Kristy Simmons and Marshay Safford.
NCLR Legal Director Shannon P. Minter said, “We are hopeful that a ruling on this motion will provide clarity regarding the obligations of probate judges across the state and correct the misunderstanding generated by Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who has erroneously instructed those judges not to comply with the requirements of the federal Constitution. We are confident that all Alabamians, regardless of where in the state they live, will soon enjoy the freedom to marry.”
Moore claims he is the one with the authority to tell probate judges who they can and can’t give marriage licenses to, and since he was not named as a defendant in either of the two cases Granade ruled in, then the ruling doesn’t apply to him. And he has issued an administrative order telling probate judges not to issues the licenses.
Lambda Legal urges probate judges to ignore Moore
Obviously not everyone agrees with Moore that he is The Man in Charge. In fact, Lambda Legal today sent a letter to the president of the Alabama Probate Judges Association and the probate judges in those 47 counties not issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, urging them to pay no attention to that bigot behind the curtain.
The letter included a lot of legal talk citing Alabama case law backing up Lambda Legal’s point that “Chief Justice Moore does not have the authority to issue the administrative order” telling the probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Greg Nivens, counsel a Lambda Legal, said, “The law is clear — all Chief Justice Moore has done is create chaos and his order is clearly out of bounds.”
Read the full letter here.
