A small-world connection has surfaced between Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and one of the Mobile plaintiffs whose federal lawsuit forced the state to recognize same-sex marriages. Cari Searcy, a video producer and one of the plaintiffs in the case, once produced campaign advertisements for Moore’s successful 2012 run for chief justice.
Searcy said a woman working with Moore’s ad agency during that year’s Republican primary hired her Mobile-based company, All Good Creatives, to help with the campaign’s media production. Knowing Moore’s public stance against same-sex relationships, Searcy said she hesitated before accepting the work.
“I didn’t even think that he would want to work with me,” Searcy said. “I struggled whether even to take the job.”
At the time, Searcy said, there was no way Moore could have known about her personal circumstances. The production work came before she appealed a ruling by Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis denying her petition to legally adopt the son she and her spouse, Kim McKeand, have raised together since birth. That adoption fight ultimately became part of the federal lawsuit that led U.S. District Judge Callie “Ginny” Granade to strike down Alabama’s ban on same-sex marriage.
Moore, for his part, said in an interview that he recalled working on campaign ads produced in Mobile but did not remember that one of the women involved was later connected to the marriage lawsuit. He said his public opposition to Granade’s ruling was rooted in a broader constitutional argument about states’ authority over marriage law, not a reaction to any one case or plaintiff.
The television spot Searcy’s company produced used footage from Moore’s earlier, unsuccessful run for governor and highlighted his background as a West Point graduate and Vietnam War veteran. It featured his wife, Kayla, speaking about family values before Moore made a direct appeal to voters. Searcy said she also produced a radio ad and a segment that aired on a national Christian family radio program, recalling that Moore arrived at the recording session with his wife, led the group in prayer, and later shared a poem he had written for her.
David Kennedy, an attorney representing Searcy and McKeand in the marriage case, said the unlikely professional relationship illustrates how personally the marriage debate affects real families in Mobile and across Alabama, rather than remaining an abstract legal dispute. “It’s a small world type of thing,” Kennedy said, noting how frequently Alabama’s legal and political circles intersect with the lives of the people whose rights are at stake in high-profile cases.
The episode adds a distinctly local footnote to a legal fight that began in Mobile County Probate Court and ultimately reshaped marriage law across the state.