Today was a very good day. Today Alabama became the 37th state where gays can legally wed, and today Alabama recognized Paul Hard as the surviving spouse on the death certificate of his husband, David Fancher.
From Southern Poverty Law Center:
Last month, a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriages, which also barred Alabama from recognizing valid same-sex marriages from other states. The ruling was put on hold until today, allowing Hard to ask the state to correct the certificate that listed his husband’s marital status as “Never Married.” Hard and Fancher were married in Massachusetts in May 2011 but were Montgomery residents. Fancher was killed that August in a wreck on Interstate 65.
At least seven of Alabama's 67 counties dispensed marriage licenses to gay couples. Jubilant couples emerged from courthouses in Birmingham and Montgomery to cheers and applause while waving marriage licenses over their heads. Ministers presided at weddings on sidewalks and in parks.
And today SPLC client Paul Hard finally received an amended death certificate recognizing him as his husband’s surviving spouse nearly four years after his husband died in a car crash.
Last month, a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriages, which also barred Alabama from recognizing valid same-sex marriages from other states. The ruling was put on hold until today, allowing Hard to ask the state to correct the certificate that listed his husband’s marital status as “Never Married.” Hard and Fancher were married in Massachusetts in May 2011 but were Montgomery residents.
Catherine Molchan Donald, state registrar and director of the center, presented Hard with the amended certificate.
“Glad we could do this for you,” she said after apologizing for the long delay and handing a teary-eyed Hard his certificate.
Hours before the ban was set to end, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore issued an order advising probate judges to defy the federal court’s ruling. Alabama's chief justice is the same judge who was forced from the bench in 2003 for disobeying a federal court order to remove a boulder-size Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse. Well he's back.
Moore took a defiant stand again, employing the kind of states' rights language used during the Civil War era and again during the civil rights movement.
He argued that a federal judge's Jan. 23 ruling striking down the Bible Belt state's gay-marriage ban was an illegal intrusion on Alabama's sovereignty. And he demanded the state's probate judges refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
"It's my duty to speak up when I see the jurisdiction of our courts being intruded by unlawful federal authority," the 67-year-old Republican chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court said in an interview Monday.
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“It’s a great day in Alabama for everyone who cherishes freedom,” said SPLC President Richard Cohen, whose organization provided legal representation for Hard. “We congratulate the same-sex couples who are finally able to marry in our state, and we honor the probate judges who are following the Constitution of the United States rather than Chief Justice Moore’s suggestion that they defy it."
Moore's effort to block gay weddings was reminiscent of Alabama Gov. George Wallace's 1960s vow of "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" and his fight against what he portrayed as the tyranny of the federal government, and is particularly topical considering the upcoming 50 year anniversary of the Civil Rights Act in 1965 which was passed after civil rights marchers were attacked and beaten in Selma, Alabama, and portrayed in the recent Academy Award nominated movie, "Selma."
"Moore is using the religion issue to further his political career, just as Wallace used the race issue to further his," said Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a major civil rights organization.
Cohen branded Moore the "Ayatollah of Alabama," and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a judicial complaint against the chief justice, accusing him of trying to incite chaos at the probate courts. http://news.yahoo.com/...
As for Hard, the amended death certificate means an SPLC case filed on his behalf will have a much better chance of a positive result. Because Fancher's death certificate stated he was "never married," Hard was unable to receive the proceeds from a wrongful death award, normally awarded to the victim's spouse.
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Today was a very good day!