Marriage Equality Shenanigans Are Afoot in Alabama

On Monday, a Black lesbian couple became the first couple to be issued a marriage license in Alabama. Elsewhere in the state, though, confusion has ensued, thanks to Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.

On Monday, a Black lesbian couple became the first couple to be issued a marriage license in Alabama. Elsewhere in the state, though, confusion has ensued, thanks to Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore. Associated Press

On Monday, a Black lesbian couple became the first couple to be issued a marriage license in Alabama, which still is overwhelmingly opposed to marriage equality (and perhaps overwhelmingly opposed to Black people, too, but that’s another story for another time). But after a federal district court struck down Alabama’s same-sex marriage ban last month, Tori Sisson and Shanté Wolfe waited in line all night in order to be the first to receive a marriage license. Because they’re adorable, that’s why.

Elsewhere in the state, however, shenanigans ensued, thanks to Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore. Moore, who is convinced God is on his side—he believes that the “institution of marriage that God ordained” is “under sustained attack from federal judges”—issued an order to all 68 Alabama probate judges warning them not to issue any marriage licenses to same sex couples, or else.

Or else what, exactly, he didn’t say.

His order has caused a lot of confusion in Alabama. According to the Human Rights Campaign, probate judges in 23 of Alabama’s 67 counties are currently issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Some probate judges are refusing to do so: As of 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, that count stands at 16. Still other probate judges—like Don Davis in Mobile County—are playing it safe and refusing to issue any marriage licenses to anyone.

Undeterred, Big Gay is going back to court to force these recalcitrant probate judges to bend to their big gay will.

Via the New York Times:

A day after a federal ruling legalizing same-sex marriage took effect in Alabama, a federal judge set a hearing that could determine whether resistant local probate judges must grant licenses to gay couples. At the same time, some officials who had refused to issue the licenses, in compliance with a state judicial ruling, reversed course.

The probate judges are caught between conflicting signals from the state and federal judiciaries.

The confusion began Monday, the effective date of a ruling by Judge Callie V. S. Granade of Federal District Court in Mobile that Alabama’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. On Monday morning, the United States Supreme Court turned down a request by state officials to stay that ruling, pending appeals.

But on Sunday night, Alabama’s chief justice, Roy S. Moore, had ordered probate judges not to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Many judges obeyed that order and refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples on Monday.

Moore’s reasons for his opposition to marriage equality are fairly ridiculous. He thinks that same-sex marriage will lead to fathers marrying their daughters and mothers marrying their sons.

Not true. Errrybody knows that the gay agenda isn’t about forcing family members to marry one another. It’s about forcing heterosexuals to marry one another.

I have it on good authority that as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court rules that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional in all 50 states—which they are expected to do at the end of the term this spring—all heterosexual married couples will be required by law to get divorced immediately and marry a same-sex partner, who will be shipped to the doorstep of each by delivery drone.

Sure, Obama has said, “If you like your spouse, you can keep your spouse,” but he said awfully similar things about Obamacare. And look what happened: Upwards of ten million people now have insurance. It’s a disaster.

Look, I’m as concerned as you are, but I’m not sure what we can do about it. Big Gay has America by the short-and-curlies.

I just hope my new wife is nice.

(For a serious look at the constitutional crisis that Roy Moore has created, check out this article by Jessica Mason Pieklo.)