Alabama court begins issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples

Inspite of a last minute attempt by the Chief Justice of Alabama to block gay weddings, the state has gone ahead and started issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples. The Chief Justice is known to oppose same sex marriages vehemently. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme court said that it would not stop same sex marriages in the state of Alabama from taking place. Soon thereafter, several such licenses were issued by Jefferson County probate judge Alan King.

One of the first recipients of this license were Dee and Laura Bush. The two have now been together for seven years and have five kids.

“It is great that we were able to be part of history,” said Dee Bush. After receiving her license, she and Laura walked outside to a park where a minister was performing wedding ceremonies to cheers from crowds.

This comes after the Chief Justice Roy Moore, who is an outspoken opponent of gay weddings, had issued an order to all probate judges on Sunday night order, directing them to refuse to issue the licenses.

Moore’s order to probate judges is not the first instance of defiance by him. More than a decade ago (in 2003), he had refused to obey a federal court order to remove a washing machine-sized Ten Commandments from the state judicial building.

This order obviously was not taken well by all sections of the society and some of them went on to protest against his action, saying he was not authorized to tell the judges to enforce a law which had already been ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.

King, on his part, says that by issuing such licenses, he was abiding by the “federal court order from January that determined Alabama’s statutory and constitutional bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Callie Granade had put her order on hold until Monday to let the state prepare for the change. The state attorney general has requested that the hold be extended, but the U.S. Supreme Court refused to do so.”