The Alabama Supreme Court ordered probate judges to stop issuing same-sex marriage licenses to couples, and gave probate judges five days to explain why they should continue issuing same-sex marriage licenses.
The Alabama Policy Institute and Alabama Citizens Action Program sued to stop probate judges from issuing same-sex marriages licenses Feb. 11, after a federal judge declared the Alabama state laws defining marriage between a man and a woman unconstitutional in January.
“As it has done for approximately two centuries, Alabama law allows for "marriage" between only one man and one woman," the Alabama Supreme Court ruling said. "Alabama probate judges have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage license contrary to this law. Nothing in the United States Constitution alters or overrides this duty,”
Six out of the nine Alabama Supreme Court justices voted in favor of the ruling. Justice Jim Main disagreed with the reasoning, but agreed with the result of the ruling. Justice Greg Shaw voted against the majority opinion.
Chief Justice Roy Moore's name did not appear on the court ruling.
Moore issued an order Feb. 8 forbidding probate judges to issue same-sex marriage licenses the day before the federal ruling was set to go into effect.
Shaw said in his dissenting opinion API and APAC did not have standing to sue.
"Government officials cannot be sued simply because a person thinks the officials are doing something wrong," Shaw said.
Shaw also said the court did not have proper jurisdiction to hear the case.
"Advising a probate judge how to issue government marriage licenses is not "superintendence and control" of an inferior court's performance of a judicial function," Shaw said. "Instead, it is instructing a State official acting in a nonjudicial capacity on how to perform a ministerial act."
The majority opinion laid out their legal reasoning for the ruling in 132 pages.
"Redefining marriage by definition implies that the traditional definition is inaccurate," the majority opinion said. "In point of fact, we are concerned here with two different, mutually exclusive definitions. One that marriage is only between a man and a woman, and one that does not include this limitation. Both definitions cannot be true at the same time."
The majority opinion said laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples are designed to encourage family structure and not to treat any group in an unequal fashion.
"The limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples has so long existed in law that ascribing its existence solely to hatred toward homosexuals is simply absurd on its face," the majority opinion said.
Read the full opinion below. The court order begins on page 133:
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