A federal judge based in Mobile made clear this week that her landmark ruling striking down Alabama’s ban on same-sex marriage is not confined to a single defendant, but applies to probate officials statewide.
U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. “Ginny” Granade, whose courtroom sits in Mobile, issued the clarification after attorneys for the plaintiffs raised concerns that the Alabama Probate Judges Association had suggested her ruling bound only the state Attorney General’s Office. Granade’s order made plain that her judgment was never meant to apply narrowly. She wrote that while a stay remains in place, neither the named defendant nor probate courts anywhere in Alabama are currently obligated to act on the judgment. But if that stay is lifted, she said, the ruling’s finding that Alabama’s marriage statute and related constitutional amendment violate the U.S. Constitution’s Due Process and Equal Protection guarantees applies broadly. By Wednesday evening, the probate judges’ association said it agreed the order extends to all 67 Alabama counties.
The case traces directly back to Mobile. Plaintiffs Cari Searcy and Kim McKeand, a Mobile-area couple who married in California in 2005, filed suit after Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis denied Searcy’s request to legally adopt the son the two women had raised together since birth, who was 9 years old at the time of the ruling. Because Alabama law recognized only McKeand as the child’s legal parent, Searcy had no formal parental rights despite raising the boy from infancy.
Granade’s original ruling made Alabama the 37th state, along with the District of Columbia, to permit same-sex marriages, finding the state’s ban unconstitutional. Days later, she issued a related ruling in favor of two other Mobile residents, James Strawser and John Humphrey, who had sued without a lawyer after being denied a marriage license.
Granade agreed to pause enforcement of her order for 14 days so the state could pursue an appeal before the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Attorney General’s Office had pushed for the ruling to remain on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in and settled the question nationally, and did not immediately comment on Granade’s latest clarification.
Attorneys for Searcy and McKeand welcomed the update. One of their lawyers said the order was consistent with the judge’s earlier rulings and expressed hope that probate judges across the state would follow it once it took effect. Co-counsel pointed to the possibility that Alabama residents could recover court costs and legal fees from probate judges who declined to comply once the stay lifted.
The dispute over how broadly a federal marriage ruling should apply echoed a similar fight that had recently played out in Florida. Granade’s order specifically referenced a Florida federal judge’s earlier clarification that his own ruling applied statewide rather than to a single county, reasoning that a court’s injunction against one party does not erase the underlying constitutional obligation for others.
The Mobile-rooted case continued to draw statewide attention in the days that followed, as Alabama’s Supreme Court chief justice weighed in publicly, arguing state officials were not bound to follow the federal order — a stance that drew its own ethics complaint.