MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – The Alabama attorney general is asking a federal judge to stay a ruling that overturned Alabama’s ban on gay marriage, as advocates cheer what once seemed an improbable victory in the deeply conservative state.
Attorney General Luther Strange’s office asked a federal judge on Friday to put the ruling on hold since the U.S. Supreme Court plans to take up the issue of gay marriage this term, “resolving the issues on a nation-wide basis.”
U.S. District Callie V.S. Granade on Friday 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 month that it will take up the issue of whether gay couples have a fundamental right to marry and if states can ban such unions.
Alabama plaintiffs Cari Searcy and Kimberly McKeand have been a couple for more than 14 years and have a son together who was conceived with the help of a sperm donor. They filed a federal lawsuit after courts refused to let Searcy be recognized as the adoptive parent of their son because they were not spouses under Alabama law.