Same-Sex Marriage Ban In Alabama Is Overturned

Last Thursday, the map above was correct. It shows 36 states where same-sex couples can get legally married -- and only 14 states where the ban on that is still being enforced. That changed on Friday. It changed because U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. Granade (a George Bush appointee) overturned the same-sex marriage ban in Alabama.

The judge did not include a stay of the decision in the ruling, which means same-sex marriages are now legal in Alabama. The Attorney General of Alabama quickly filed a motion to stay the decision until the Supreme Court makes a decision on the matter -- but if the judge was going to issue a stay, it would probably have been included in the decision (as some other federal judges have done). It is also unlikely that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court will issue a stay, since both refused to do so for Florida.

The case was brought by a lesbian couple who were barred from adopting the child they are raising because the state of Alabama didn't recognize their marriage. In the decision, Judge Granade wrote:

“There has been no evidence presented that these marriage laws have any effect on the choices of couples to have or raise children, whether they are same-sex couples or opposite-sex couples. In sum, the laws in question are an irrational way of promoting biological relationships in Alabama.” 

“If anything, Alabama’s prohibition of same-sex marriage detracts from its goal of promoting optimal environments for children. Those children currently being raised by same-sex parents in Alabama are just as worthy of protection and recognition by the State as are the children being raised by opposite-sex parents. Yet Alabama’s Sanctity laws harms the children of same-sex couples for the same reasons that the Supreme Court found that the Defense of Marriage Act harmed the children of same-sex couples.” 

The judge also ruled, as other federal judges have, that the ban on same-sex marriages violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

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On a slightly different note, a new Gallup Poll shows that a majority of Americans (with even larger majorities of Independents and Democrats) are satisfied that gays/lesbians are now being accepted in the United States.