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Public opinion surveys show that a majority of adults — and a growing one — now supports same-sex marriage. But the rapid change in public opinion may obscure another fact: Large areas of the country remain overwhelmingly opposed to same-sex marriage, with little sign of change. Alabama is one of those places, and the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court this weekend encouraged probate judges there to defy a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The emerging national majority in favor of same-sex marriage is built on high levels of support in well-educated metropolitan areas,...

The Alabama newspapers have been slamming their gay agenda down the throats Alabama readers for several weeks. As you can see, it's one story after another. The newspapers are putting those in support of same sex marriage as being on the morally correct side. It is absolutely repulsive how they're pushing this agenda. I'll add that I am shocked how frequently and hard they've been pushing it down reader's throats. It's a war of moral values.

Chief Justice Roy Moore of Alabama, who tried to stop gay marriage there with a last-minute order, insisted Monday that the federal courts have overstepped their authority by ordering the state to issue same-sex marriage licenses. "The U.S. district courts have no power or authority to redefine marriage," he told NBC News by phone. "Once you start redefining marriage, that's the ultimate power. Would it overturn the laws of incest? Bigamy? Polygamy? How far do they go?" "A lot of states in this union have caved to such unlawful authority, and this is not one," he said. "This is Alabama....

A Sunday night order from Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore ordering probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples caused confusion at county courthouses this morning. Probate judges in several counties decided not to issue any marriage licenses at all - to same-sex or heterosexual couples. In some counties, including Butler County, Colbert County and Coosa County probate courts are taking marriage applications from all couples but not issuing licenses. In Coffee County, Jefferson County, Chilton County and Madison County, probate judges said they will issue marriage licenses to all couples, gay and straight, on Monday...

Link only, due to AP source.

Order at the link. Notably Alito and Roberts did not join the dissent.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's chief justice, who famously refused to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a state judicial building, has urged probate judges to refuse marriage licenses to gay couples even though a federal judge ruled the state's same-sex marriage ban. Roy Moore sent a letter to Alabama probate judges on Tuesday saying they are not bound by the ruling because they were not defendants in the lawsuit and have not been directly ordered to issue the licenses. He said the federal court did not have the authority to allow same-sex marriages. No federal judge, or court, should...

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “José Díaz-Balart,” Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) reacted to the appointment of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as chairman to Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration. According to Gutiérrez, the appointment was a mistake and called into question the Republican Party’s desire to reemerge as a “national party.” “Well, let me just say, if the Republican Party wants to move forward as a national party, it has to stop thinking about simply the South,” Gutiérrez said. “They got it. They seem to win there.

Anti-union forces claim UAW ‘stuffed’ ballot box. Workers in Alabama are staging a fourth attempt to kick the United Auto Workers (UAW) out of their plant following claims that stuffed ballot boxes derailed their last vote. Employees at the NTN-Bower Corporation, a ball bearings manufacturer, have unsuccessfully tried to boot the labor giant out of their factory for two years. Workers voted to decertify the UAW in an earlier election, but an Obama-appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) panel threw out the election. Another election was held in January of this year. The UAW prevailed, but it was later revealed...

In a recent meeting of the Board of Education in the city of Artichoke, Alabama, it was decided to ban the reading of Homer's Illiad and Odyssey in the classroom. The grounds given for the exclusion of these towering masterpieces of ancient literature is that reading them in a public school violated the first amendment's guarantee of the separation of church and state. Wallace Nobrainer, the attorney for the Artichoke school system, explained that "the Homeric texts are obviously designed to promote the polytheistic view of the Greeks," and hence they should be looked upon in the same light as...

A federal appeals court in Atlanta on Tuesday denied a request to extend a a delay on a ruling striking down Alabama's same-sex marriage ban, meaning gay couples will be able to start getting married on Feb. 9. The Alabama Attorney General's Office immediately said it would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, although the justices have rebuffed similar requests from other states. "I am disappointed in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court's decision not to stay the federal district court's ruling," Attorney General Luther Strange said in a prepared statement. "The confusion that has been created by the District...

In what has been described as a new front in the battle over same-sex marriage, legislators in several states under judicial orders to confer marital status on same-sex couples have introduced bills to forbid state or local officials from issuing marriage licenses to couples of the same gender. The bills would also strip the salaries of employees who issued the licenses, the New York Times reported Thursday.The bills have been introduced in the legislatures of Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas, with South Carolina also considering a bill that would allow officials to opt out of issuing such licenses if it...

It’s Roy Moore, who’s already nationally famous for his willingness to defy federal courts. He got elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2001, had a monument to the Ten Commandments installed on the courthouse grounds, then was tossed off the bench for refusing to comply when a federal judge ordered him to remove the monument to prevent a violation of the Establishment Clause. He got reelected chief justice a few years ago and now he’s going to defy the federal judiciary on another hot-button “values” issue, namely, last week’s ruling that the part of the Alabama...

Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has released a letter to Gov. Robert Bentley saying that he intends to continue to recognize the state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and urging the governor to do so. Moore's office released the three-page letter that was delivered to the governor this morning in response to a federal judge's ruling Friday striking down the ban. "As Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, I will continue to recognize the Alabama Constitution and the will of the people overwhelmingly expressed in the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment," Moore wrote.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that both Nevada and Tennessee have joined the Lone Star state's challenge of President Obama's executive amnesty, bringing the total number of states fighting Obama's unilateral immigration policies to 26. “Texas is proud to lead a coalition that now includes a majority of the United States standing up against the President’s rogue actions,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “The momentum against the President's lawlessness continues to build with Tennessee and Nevada joining the effort to protect our states from the economic and public safety implications of illegal amnesty. As President...

MONTGOMERY – State Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, says she is considering bringing back this year legislation that says an abortion can’t be performed if a fetal heartbeat can be heard. The legislation makes it unlawful for a physician to perform an abortion if a heartbeat has been detected. Medical experts say a heartbeat can be detected around six to eight weeks. The restrictive and controversial legislation has been tied up in legal fights other states, but Collins said this week she is looking for another angle, with new and different language. “We’re trying to see what the courts have said...

Alabama's first openly gay state lawmaker threatened to "out" fellow elected officials engaged in extramarital affairs, especially those that champion family values and traditional marriage. State Rep. Patricia Todd's (D-Birmingham) ire came to a boil after several state officials reacted negatively to a recent federal ruling that declared Alabama's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard called the ruling "outrageous" and said that the will of 80% of Alabama citizens who voted in 2006 to define marriage as between a man and a woman has been overturned by the act of "a single unelected and unaccountable federal...

While the battle over same-sex marriage in Alabama is heating up, it has already reached a boiling point in Oklahoma. And the fight there could very well signal what's ahead here. Oklahoma legislator Rep. Todd Russ - an Assemblies of God minister- has filed a bill requiring that only "an ordained or authorized preacher or minister of the Gospel, priest or other ecclesiastical dignitary of any denomination" be allowed to sign marriage certificates. County judges would be prohibited from performing weddings and no clerks could issue marriage licenses. No religious officiant? You're out of luck, though you can file an...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama became the latest state to see its ban on gay marriage fall to a federal court ruling Friday, as the issue of same-sex marriage heads to the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. District Callie V.S. Granade ruled in favor of two Mobile women who sued to challenge Alabama's refusal to recognize their 2008 marriage performed in California. The ruling is the latest in a string of wins for advocates of marriage rights. Judges have also struck down bans in several other Southern states, including the Carolinas, Florida, Mississippi and Virginia. The U.S. Supreme Court announced this...

Federal Judge Strikes Down Alabama's Ban on Same-Sex Marriage BY PETE WILLIAMS A federal judge in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage, bringing the number of states that allow same-sex couples to marry to 37. "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," wrote Federal District Court Judge Callie V.S. Granade.