A federal judge on Thursday reaffirmed her decision last January that same-sex couples can marry in Alabama but put it on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court makes its decision next month.
"For the reasons explained below, the Court finds that Plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction should be granted, but stayed pending the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges and related cases," U.S. District Judge Callie Granade wrote in her 14-page decision.
The suit was filed by same-sex couples against Probate Judge Don Davis and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange among others.
One couple, Kristie Ogle and Jennifer Ogle, have been in relationship for 22 years and have a child who was born in 2002 in Alabama.
The two went to the Mobile Country Probate Office to obtain a marriage license last March 4 but failed to get one. The following day, Kristie called the Baldwin Country Probate Judge's office and was told that they were not issuing licenses to same-sex couples.
The Alabama Marriage Protection Act says "no marriage license shall be issued in the State of Alabama to parties of the same sex."
The plaintiffs argued that "Alabama's marriage laws prohibiting and refusing to recognize same-sex marriage violate the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution."
Davis, who has refused to follow Granade's earlier ruling, told the judge that an injunction would be in direct conflict with the Alabama Supreme Court decision last March, which stopped same-sex marriage in the state.
"It is true that if this Court grants the preliminary injunction the probate judges will be faced with complying with either Alabama's marriage laws that prohibit same-sex marriage as they have been directed by the Alabama Supreme Court or with complying with the United States Constitution as directed by this Court. However, the choice should be simple. Under the Supremacy Clause, the laws of the United States are 'the supreme Law of the Land,'"Granade ruled.
In her decision, Granade ruled that Alabama's laws that ban same-sex marriage "are unconstitutional because they violate the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."
She prohibited Davis, Judge Tim Russell and the members of the defendant class "from enforcing the Alabama laws which prohibit or fail to recognize same-sex marriage."
"If the named Plaintiffs or any members of the Plaintiff Class 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 Don Davis, Judge Tim Russell and the members of the Defendant Class may not deny them a license on the ground that they are same-sex couples or because it is prohibited by the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment and the Alabama Marriage Protection Act or by any other Alabama law or Order, including any injunction issued by the Alabama Supreme Court pertaining to same-sex marriage," Granade said.
However, Granade said "because the issues raised by this case are subject to an imminent decision by the United States Supreme Court in Obergefellv. Hodges and related cases, the above preliminary injunction is stayed until the Supreme Court issues its ruling."
