It seems that Alabama Governor Robert Bentley received from strong advice from his pastor, Gil McKee, the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa. Pastor McKee pleaded with the Governor to stand with Alabama's Chief Justice Roy Moore and defy the federal court order mandating marriage equality in the state.
From Right Wing Watch:
McKee told his congregation that he had had a long talk with Bentley urging him to defy the courts on marriage, implying that same-sex marriage could lead to the collapse of the United States.
“Here’s what I said to our governor yesterday,” McKee said. “'Governor, I don’t care if all 49 other states go for this same-sex marriage business, let’s be different in the state of Alabama. Let’s do what we know is the right thing to do … The reality is, we’re still living in a very conservative state. The people who are conservative and who are Christian, if you’ll just step up and lead out on this thing, if you’ll give the word to our chief justice to call all our probate judges…and say, "listen, don’t you issue one single license until the federal government does its thing and we decide whether we’re going to follow it or not, don’t you issue one of those." I’m telling you, the people of this state would rally behind that.'”
He added that he would be willing to go to jail in protest of same-sex marriage, because “there’s nothing gray about this issue. Not if you’re going to go by what God says, and God has made it very clear that marriage is between one man and one women, period. That settles it. That’s it.”
He goes on to use Daniel and Daniel's refusal to follow King Nebuchadnezzar's official decree that no one was to pray to anyone other than a statue - a golden statue of himself - as an example of how to respond.
The problem with that analogy is that the court order is not forcing the Governor to do anything. He is not even a party to the case. He simply cannot enforce Alabama's marriage equality bans.
You can read more about this story here as well.