Alabama’s resistance to marriage equality will be short lived

On Monday, the United States Supreme Court denied a request to stay the ruling of a federal district judge which had invalidated Alabama’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Despite the ruling, many of the state’s probate judges have refused to provide marriage licenses, and were also instructed not to do so by the state Supreme Court’s Chief Justice. Heather Elliott writes that the judges’ resistance is in part due to the fact that they face elections in a state where only 32 percent of the population favor same-sex marriage. She argues that Alabama is on the wrong side of states’ rights and marriage equality, and that the Supreme Court’s coming ruling on same-sex marriage will remove all doubt in Alabama, and across the country