50 Alabama counties are still blocking marriage equality

Couples in Mobile are being denied marriage licenses, prompting further legal action.

Couples in Mobile are being denied marriage licenses, prompting further legal action.

Fifty Alabama counties refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Monday, despite a federal judge's decision overturning the state's marriage ban. With many of the state's probate judges following the order by Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore to refuse to issue the marriage licenses, equality advocates have gone back to court:

On Monday night, they asked Judge Granade to issue an order directing the probate judge in Mobile, Don Davis, to issue the licenses. The state attorney general, Luther Strange, filed a response Tuesday morning, opposing the request. It was not clear whether Judge Granade would hear oral arguments or rule on the motion on Tuesday, as the advocates hoped. [...]

Same-sex marriage advocates asked Judge Granade to hold Judge Davis in contempt of court, but she turned down that request, partly on the basis that he was not a party named in the underlying lawsuits. The new motion was made by different lawyers, who amended their suit to add Judge Davis as a defendant, and asked Judge Granade for a court order. The suit did not ask that Judge Davis be held in contempt.

These Alabama judges aren't just on the wrong side of history in this matter, they're producing uncomfortable echoes of recent American history in which Alabama's legal system stood on the wrong side of justice and the Constitution. The good news is that Alabama couples can marry in more than a dozen of their state's counties.

10:54 AM PT: There will be a February 12 hearing on the request for an injunction in Mobile County.