Republican Alabama Governor Robert
Bentley argues in an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court
that gay couples marrying harms children.
The nation's highest court will hear
oral arguments in a case challenging marriage bans in Ohio, Kentucky,
Michigan and Tennessee on April 28, with a ruling expected in June.
Bentley's lawyers urged the Supreme
Court to uphold such bans, arguing that allowing gay couples to marry
destroys the “rights of children to be connected to their
biological parents.”
U.S. District Judge Callie “Ginny”
Granade dismissed similar arguments made by the state in a case that
declared the state's restrictive marriage ban unconstitutional.
The Alabama Supreme Court on March 3
temporarily restored the ban when it ordered probate judges to stop
issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.
Plaintiffs
responded by filing a class action lawsuit.