The NCLR (along with other LGBT groups) has requested to amend their marriage equality complaint in the Alabama marriage equality lawsuit and make it a class-action suit covering all same-sex couples in Alabama. They also want to make all probate judges a class of defendants to the same class-action suit.
From Equality On Trial:
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) has filed an amended complaint in the Strawser case, seeking to turn the challenge into a class-action lawsuit. The new pleading asks Judge Granade, who’s been overseeing all the federal litigation in the Southern District of Alabama, to certify a plaintiff class with all same-sex couples in the state who want to marry, and a defendant class of all county probate judges.
The NCLR legal team is joined by the ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), And Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Specifically, the filing says: “The Plaintiff Class is defined as: “All persons in Alabama who wish to obtain a marriage license in order to marry a person of the same sex and to have that marriage recognized under Alabama law, and who are unable to do so because of the enforcement of Alabama’s laws prohibiting the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples and barring recognition of their marriages.” The Defendant Class is defined as: “All Alabama county probate judges who are enforcing or in the future may enforce Alabama’s laws barring the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples and refusing to recognize their marriages.”
The case could potentially result in a formal federal decision requiring marriage licenses to be issued to same-sex couples throughout Alabama.
Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) told EqualityOnTrial, “Alabama couples deserve the security and protection that marriage provides. We hope that the court will act quickly to provide certainty to couples throughout the state and establish once and for all that Alabama’s same-sex couples have the freedom to marry.”
The amended complaint is
here.
Meanwhile, Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis has requested a stay of Judge Granade's marriage equality ruling because of the conflicting ruling/order from the Alabama Supreme Court. He says that the two rulings put him in an untenable position. You can read that motion here. He is correct, however one wonders why he did not ask for an emergency stay of the Alabama Supreme Court order from the SCOTUS. That is what I had hoped one of the probate judges had done. Judge Granade has asked for a response to that motion from the plaintiffs by March 13.
To my knowledge, there are still no probate judges in Alabama issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.