The greatest battle the LGBT community has raged against families is their fight for legal marriages.
Attempting to squash the intended union of one man and one woman, same-sex couples have advocated that they have constitutional access to holy matrimony.
Never mind the moral and logistic conundrums they face, they want to act on the lustful emotions they call love.
In 2015, despite many states disagreeing with the legalization of same-sex marriages, and ignoring state statutes, the Supreme Court made gay marriage legal in all 50 states.
The Obergefell v. Hodges’s decision gave homosexuals a huge victory, and conservatives a markedly sad day for constitutional honor.
Alabama had since been doing what they can to stand up for the sanctity of marriage. Many judges were refusing to sign off on the marriage license for gay marriages.
Some judges even took their commitment to the spirit of the law further. Fox News reported:
“Alabama’s state law has long defined marriage as between a man and a woman and has given probate judges discretion in issuing marriage licenses.
But after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling, then-Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore instructed probate judges to use their power to deny same-sex couples marriage certificates. The conflicting orders led to Moore’s suspension from the court.”
It is an outrage to have the government, under the direction and leadership of previous president Barack Obama, force judges to go against their fundamental beliefs in a gross misrepresentation of constitutional law.
This darkness has infected more than the marriage realm, as we see business owners and individuals getting berated and sued for standing up for what they believe in.
Now, after the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriages, a lot of conservative judges feel they are in between a rock and a hard place.
They don’t like to sign off on a marriage certificate where they believe it is not a real marriage, but they don’t want to be suspended, or even worse publicly bullied for their position.
In an effort to appease conservative judge’s conflicted conscience, and to get the LGBT community off their back, Republican Senator Greg Albritton wants to do away with marriage licenses altogether in the state of Alabama.
Fox News reported:
“Alabama lawmakers may be waving the white flag in the culture wars – advancing a bill that would eliminate marriage licenses entirely, in turn helping judges avoid the gay marriage debate in the conservative state.
No one particularly likes changing our law, I’ll tell you that,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Greg Albritton, said in an interview with Fox News. “However, under the circumstances, it’s the best thing we can do.””
Albritton defensively claims that he is not “denigrating marriage”, as is argued by some of his party representatives.
He, in return, presents it as a practical solution for Alabama, when they are being forced to be a state that recognizes gay marriages.
Albritton stated to Fox News:
“We would not have changed this had it not been for Obergefell,” Albritton said. “But without the change, the law remains in conflict with Obergefell. So we got to make some changes to the law to come into compliance.”
No other state has been made aware that they have utilized this approach to come into compliance with the gay marriage law, although there have been other judges to refuse to give them a license.
The problem is that currently, Alabama law only says that probate judges “may” sign off on a marriage license, but they are not required to, according to Alabama Local News.
The conflict being that state law says that it is up to the judge’s discretion, while federal law mandates gay couples the right to get married in the state.
Alabama Local News reported:
“The bill, proposed by Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Range, would remove the granting of marriage licenses from the authority of the probate judge and ensure couples could get married in every county.”
If the law goes into effect, a document will be submitted to the court that states the couple is willfully entering the marriage, and that they are not related, but no signature by a judge will be required.
No one seems to doubt this bill is going to pass. It has already made it through the Senate, and is waiting to be passed by the House.
Is this bill a protection of religious right to refuse conflicting services, or a compromise to a whining and threatening liberal mob?
The events that seem to be unfolding may have been inevitable with the Supreme Court ruling dominating legislative direction, but the Republican catalyst for the bill seems disappointing.
Please let us know if you think this bill is a reasonable way out for judges not to have to get involved in gay marriage or if you think it is the state giving up on the fight for traditional marriage.