Federal judge orders Mobile county to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples

MOBILE, Ala. - The federal judge who overturned Alabama's gay marriage ban ordered a defiant county to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, signaling to judges across the state that they should do the same.

About an hour after U.S. District Judge Callie Granade's ruling, Mobile County opened up its marriage license office and started granting the documents to gay couples, according to David Kennedy, an attorney for one of the couples who wed.

U.S. District Judge Callie Granade held a brief hearing Thursday and issued an injunction that orders Mobile Probate Court to issue the licenses. The court's Judge Don Davis as well as others in the state had not issued them and awaited this decision.

Granade held the hearing amid confusion in Alabama, as many probate judges there refused to issue the licenses after state Chief Justice Roy Moore said they didn't have to.

But in Granade's ruling, she found Alabama's law baring same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.

"... The Plaintiffs in this case have submitted declarations attesting to the specific reasons why their inability to become legally married in Alabama presents a substantial threat of irreparable injury," Granade wrote in her ruling. "Additionally, "it is always in the public interest to protect constitutional rights."

Moore gave his initial order even though Granade overturned the state's ban last month and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stop gay marriages from beginning Monday.

Probate judges in at least 22 of the 67 counties were issuing the licenses but others are not been -- either denying licenses to gay couples or shutting down marriage license operations altogether because the probate judges aren't sure what to do.

Moore, a conservative supporter of the state's gay marriage ban, wrote to the probate judges that such unions were still illegal in the state.

Moore sent a directive to probate judges Sunday instructing them to refuse the licenses - one day before an order by Granade allowing gay marriage was to take effect. Moore argued that the probate judges weren't defendants in the lawsuit that prompted Granade's decision and didn't have to abide by the order.

But CBS Mobile, Ala. affiliate WKRG reported that plaintiffs lawyers argued during the hearing that Moore's order had no legal weight and only confused judges who decided not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Further, they said Granade's ruling in an earlier case that eventually toppled the state's ban on same-sex marriage was unambiguous.

With Granade's decision freeing clearing the way for legalized same-sex marriage, attorney David Kennedy who represents one of the couples, said Thursday his clients were wed in Mobile County, just hours after a federal judge issued the ordered to the county.