Alabama Probate Judges: Gay Marriage Ruling Only Applied to Plaintiffs

The Alabama Probate Judge Association issued a statement yesterday, declaring that Friday's gay marriage ruling only applied to Cari Searcy and Kim McKeand. They were the only plaintiffs in that federal court case which successfully challenged their state's gay marriage ban:

"Judge Granade's ruling in this case only applies to the parties in the case and has no effect on anybody that is not a named party. The probate judges were not parties in this matter," Al Agricola, attorney for the Alabama Probate Judges Association, explained. "The legal effect of this decision is to allow one person in one same-sex marriage that was performed in another state to adopt their partner's child. There is nothing in the judge's order that requires probate judges in Alabama to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples."

Judge Greg Norris, President of the Alabama Probate Judges Association, hopes that misinterpretation of Friday's ruling will not cause confusion among the general public.

"As probate judges, our duty is to issue marriage licenses in accordance with Alabama law and that means we can not legally issue marriage licenses to same sex couples," Norris said. "The recent federal ruling does not change that."

It's been pointed out elsewhere that this type of legal interpretation did not go over so well in Florida:


Maybe Alabama's myriad same-sex couples need to clog up the court system with hundreds of individual gay marriage challenges?