Alabama appeared set within hours to become the 37th state where gays can legally wed, prompting one couple to pitch a tent outside a courthouse even as the state’s chief justice made an 11th hour bid to keep the weddings on hold Monday.
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore sent a letter Sunday evening to probate judges ordering them to refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses when the courts opened Monday morning. Moore wrote that the judges weren’t bound by a federal judge’s ruling Jan. 23 that the marriage ban was unconstitutional.
“Effective immediately, no probate judge of the state of Alabama nor any agent or employee of any Alabama probate judge shall issue or recognize a marriage license that is inconsistent with (the Alabama Constitution),” Moore wrote.
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“I think it will really pretty simple. Hopefully we will be able to hand out a lot of wedding favors,” Watson said.
More than 100 people attended a “Sanctity of Marriage” rally at the Alabama Capitol on Saturday. With the sign “One Man One Woman” behind them, speakers said they stood with the biblical definition of marriage and the 80 percent of voters who approved Alabama’s gay marriage ban in 2006.
A group of marriage rights supporters gathered across the street waving signs reading, “Y’all means all” and singing a version of “Going to the Chapel,” but changing the word chapel to courthouse.
