UPDATED 1/25/15 - 14-day stay issued on the ruling. The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals has until February 9th to extend or lift the stay.
1/23/15 - A ruling striking down Alabama's same-sex marriage ban came in a case concerning a same-sex couple married in California, and related to a petition for adoption. A federal judge in Mobile has ruled that the Alabama Marriage Protection Act and the amendment making the prohibition of same-sex marriage part of the state's constitution violates the United States Constitution. Cari Searcy had been denied legal adoption of a boy, now nine years old, that she and her wife Kim McKeand have raised together.
U.S. District Court Judge Callie Granade wrote that Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange "contends that Alabama has a legitimate interest in protecting the ties between children and their biological parents and other biological kin. However, the Court finds that the laws in question are not narrowly tailored to fulfill the reported interest. The Attorney General does not explain how allowing or recognizing same-sex marriage between two consenting adults will prevent heterosexual parents or other biological kin from caring for their biological children. He proffers no justification for why it is that the provisions in question single out same-sex couples and prohibit them, and them alone, from marrying in order to meet that goal."
Attorney General Strange has filed a motion seeking a stay of the judge's order, noting in his filing that the issues in the case are to be heard during this term of the United States Supreme Court.
You can read the judge's opinion and order, the judgment, the attorney general's motion for a stay, and the order granting the two-week stay, here.
images of Mobile's John Archibald Campbell Federal Courthouse by Chris Pruitt, Creative Commons license
