Republican Alabama Governor Robert
Bentley has asked the Supreme Court to stay a pair of rulings
striking down the state's ban on gay marriage.
Bentley argues in an amicus
brief that allowing gay couples to marry would “invite chaos.”
“No State has done what the District
Court is ordering here because doing so would invite chaos,”
Bentley wrote in his brief.
U.S. District Judge Callie “Ginny”
Granade declared the state's ban unconstitutional in two similar
cases, both of which are set to take effect on Monday, February 9.
Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange
turned to the Supreme Court after the Eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals in Atlanta denied his request to set aside Granade's rulings
as the state pursues appeals.
Bentley argues in his brief that
implementing Granade's rulings would prove disruptive to the
marriages of opposite-sex couples and to marriage itself as an
institution.
“Eliminating the distinction between
marriage and non-marital relations would obscure the nature of
marriage, frustrate the State's efforts to distinguish between
marriage and non-marital relations, and threaten the unique legal
protections for the fundamental rights of children to have legal
connections to their biological parents. That is the very foundation
of the fundamental right of marriage upon which the District Court
purported to predicate its ruling,” he wrote.
“The District Court is asking Alabama
to eliminate the fundamental rights and duties of marriage and
parentage.”
And
elsewhere, “To force States to redefine marriage is to obscure
the non-fungible value of mother and father.”
Alabama's emergency request was filed
late Tuesday with Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees the
Eleventh Circuit. Thomas is considered one of the court's most
conservative justices.
Without intervention by the Supreme
Court, Alabama on Monday will become the 37th state, plus
the District of Columbia, where gay and lesbian couples can marry.
(Brief provided by Equality
Case Files.)