Gay marriage has been a major topic in Alabama’s political world.
On Tuesday, Feb. 3, the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta denied the state of Alabama a stay on a district judge’s ruling, which allows same-sex marriage in Alabama, according to an al.com article. This ruling makes Alabama the 37th state to allow gay marriage.
U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. Granade ruled Jan. 23 that Alabama’s Marriage Protection Act and the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment were unconstitutional.
An al.com article said that after the Atlanta court’s ruling, the Alabama attorney general’s office said that it would attempt to contact the U.S. Supreme Court to try to have the ruling overturned.
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has made statements against the court’s ruling.
According to the al.com article, Moore said that only the U.S. Supreme Court can “overrule state law.”
He said, in a letter to Alabama’s probate judges, that judges are not required to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples, according to a Huffington Post article.
Because of his remarks about gay marriage in the state of Alabama, the Southern Poverty Law Center has filed a complaint against Moore, according to the group’s website. The group, on its website, said that Moore “is intoxicated by his own sense of self-righteousness. He doesn’t seem to understand that we’re a nation of laws, not of men.”
The group, a civil rights activist group, has filed a lawsuit in the past against the Marriage Protection Act and the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment.
According to the al.com article, the only way that this ruling can be overturned now is if the U.S. Supreme Court follows the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati’s decision “to reverse lower court rulings” regarding same-sex marriages.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling is expected in June.
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