Alabama is ending state marriage licenses and ceremony requirements. File an affidavit and you're hitched. Apparently a way to keep some judges from getting pissy about having to issue same-sex marriage licenses, but whatever. https://t.co/fa7mfaiVwY
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) May 24, 2019
Alabama is ending state marriage licenses and ceremony requirements. File an affidavit and you’re hitched. Apparently a way to keep some judges from getting pissy about having to issue same-sex marriage licenses, but whatever.
https://t.co/fa7mfaiVwY
So this is kind of interesting. Alabama has been still struggling with government workers — probate judges in particular — refusing to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples, even though it’s been established as completely legal. Somehow they feel they are going to get sodomy cooties or something by “participating” in a marriage between two people of the same gender, even though there’s no sign that they do any similar vetting of all the other marriages they are willing to sign off on.
(Judicial signing of a marriage license indicates that it is a lawful marriage, not necessarily a moral one or praiseworthy one or attractive one or one that meets one’s interpretation of God’s approval. If the latter were the case, I would expect a whole lot fewer marriages, and a lot less patience for judges.)
Current Alabama law only says that a judge may sign licenses, so county probate judges who object to gay folk getting married have been refusing to sign any licenses, meaning people are sometimes forced to drive to another county to get their paperwork done, regardless of their sexual orientation.
Rather than telling people to do their job or get fired for it, Alabama is pulling an end run: they’re getting rid of marriage licenses and compulsory marriage ceremonies altogether. Now nobody has to “sign off” on a marriage except the participants.
That’s actually not a bad thing, even if it’s for, um, dubious reasons. Couples wanting to marry will now need only sign an affidavit that they are legal to do so. Zip-zoom, you may kiss your partner. No judges required to sign on the license. No officiant “solemnizing” and signing off that they witnessed the ceremony as an official witness. Like any other legal contract (which, from the perspective of the state, marriage is), the participants sign on the dotted line and it’s done.
It’s expected most folk will still want a wedding ceremony of some sort — gloom and doom predictions about the death of the marriage industry in Alabama seem wildly exaggerated to me. And now those probate judges who don’t want to sully their fingers dealing with Those People and Their Unholy Alliances (at least until there are wills to be probated) can remain ritually pure and pretend to virtue.
Would you like to know more?
- Alabama lawmakers pass bill to end marriage licenses – al.com
- Alabama legislature makes same-sex marriage easier by passing law ending license requirement – The Washington Post
- Marriage licenses end in Alabama? What’s next, what it means if you’re getting married – al.com