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| Milton Persinger, left, and Robert Povilat, both of Mobile, Ala., get married at Government Plaza as the Rev. Sandy O'Steen from Cornerstone Metropolitan Community Church officiates. They were the first same-sex couple to get married in Mobile, Ala., Thursday Feb. 12, 2015. |
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Alabama's stand against gay marriage crumbled Friday as judges in most counties sided with federal courts rather than their own chief justice, a Republican who once called homosexuality an inherent evil.
Many counties in the Bible Belt state
reversed course and began issuing the licenses to same-sex couples after
the latest strongly worded order from U.S. District Judge Callie
Granade. She said Thursday that a judge could no longer deny marriage
licenses to gays and lesbians, reiterating her ruling striking down the
state's ban on same-sex marriage.
"These
numbers represent a seismic shift in favor of equality and justice.
Resistance to happy, loving and committed same-sex couples getting
married is quickly crumbling throughout the state," said Fred Sainz, a
top spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, which has been lobbying to
expand gay rights nationwide.
Granade's ruling
enabling gays to get licenses went into effect Monday after the U.S.
Supreme Court declined to intervene. But even then, Alabama Chief
Justice Roy Moore said county judges were not bound by her decision.
"It's
my duty to speak up when I see the jurisdiction of our courts being
intruded by unlawful federal authority," Moore insisted in an interview
with The Associated Press later Monday.
About
20 of Alabama's counties allowed gays and lesbians to wed on Monday. By
Friday that number had jumped to at least 47, the Human Rights Campaign
said. Other counties said they would revisit the decision next week.
Granade's
ruling made Alabama the 37th state where gays and lesbians can legally
wed. It also continued her family legacy of bringing sweeping change to a
place where many people didn't yet welcome it.
Her
grandfather was Richard Rives, a federal appellate judge whose rulings
helped desegregate the South despite resistance to the Civil Rights
movement in the 1950s and 1960s.
"Judge Rives,
my grandfather, really is my personal hero," Granade said during her
2001 Senate confirmation hearing. She denied then that "judicial
activism" describes what her grandfather did - or what she might do.
"The
issues on which he more or less broke with precedent were ones which
really flew in the face of the Constitution," she said. "I think a judge
will always be correct if the decisions that he or she makes are
consistent with the plain language of the Constitution."
While
many Republican politicians in Alabama criticized her ruling last month
and tried to link her to Obama administration policies, Granade was
appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush.
Granade
could have stayed her decision pending a final U.S. Supreme Court
ruling, as federal judges in Mississippi and Arkansas did. Instead, she
rejected Alabama's argument that keeping gays and lesbians from marrying
benefits the state's children. And after Moore urged judges this week
to ignore her ruling, she reiterated that they are bound by the U.S.
Constitution to treat all couples equally.
Lee County's probate judge, Bill English, said Friday that Granade's order "makes it clear" he had to open his courthouse doors.
Moore's
stand against federal authority surprised no one in Alabama, where the
68-year-old jurist who twice ran for governor burnished his conservative
image a decade ago with a losing fight to keep his Ten Commandments
statue inside the Alabama Judicial Building.
While
Moore again appeared on the losing side Friday, a longtime supporter
said the 81 percent of Alabama voters who chose to ban gay marriage in
2006 would appreciate his stand.
"I think this
lady judge is scaring the daylights out of these people," Orange Beach
businessman Dean Young said. "The people are very thankful that Judge
Moore is standing up."
