The Alabama Supreme Court [official website] ruled [order, PDF] Tuesday that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is legal, despite an earlier decision by a federal judge to the contrary. The Supreme Court ordered 68 probate judges in Alabama to halt the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples, stating, “Alabama law allows for ‘marriage’ between only one man and one woman.” US District Judge Callie Granade had ruled [JURIST report] in January that the same-sex marriage ban violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection. But the state’s supreme court ruled that this does not prevent judges from following state law, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. If state judges believe that they do not have to follow the court’s decision, then they have five days to respond and state their claims. Chief Justice Roy Moore, a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage, did not participate in the court’s decision.

Same-sex marriage [JURIST backgrounder] remains one of the most controversial legal topics in the US. In January the US Supreme Court consolidated appeals from Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee after the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld bans in those states [JURIST reports]. The four consolidated cases include Bourke v. Beshear, DeBoer v. Snyder, Obergefell v. Hodges and Tanco v. Haslam [dockets].