Alabama Attorney Sues SCOTUS Justices Who Legalized Gay Marriage

Did 5 Supreme Court justices violate two constitutional amendments

 and their oaths of office?

John Sullivan (C) and Chris McCary (R), both from Anniston, Alabama, are married by Justice of the Peace Joan Drysdale (L) in Provincetown, Massachusetts. © Brian Snyder / Reuters

A lawyer from Bessemer, Alabama has filed a $6 million lawsuit against the five US Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. He is claiming they violated two constitutional amendments and their oaths of office.

Family law attorney Austin Burdick filed the lawsuit Wednesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, naming Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Burdick is suing the five associate justices for violations of the 5th and 14th Amendments, and for violating their oaths of office. He is also claiming compensatory damages, punitive damages and mental anguish damages totaling more than $6 million.

"For centuries the Constitution has been the instrument of protection for the rights of citizens against government intrusion," Burdick said in the lawsuit. “Specifically, since the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, [the Supreme Court] interpreted the plain language of the Constitution and that amendment to be a guarantee of freedom from government interference in individual liberty.”

In June, the five justices sided with the plaintiff in Obergefell v. Hodges, with the resulting Supreme Court verdict mandating that same-sex marriage was legal nationwide.

"This 'interpretation' is no interpretation at all. It is a tyrannical usurpation of authority to rewrite the Constitution," Burdick said in his lawsuit. By making such a ruling, he argued, the five justices rewrote the 14th Amendment to expand government authority, rather than restrict it.

"The opinion in fact rewrites the 14th Amendment to read: 'Every state must make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States; further, each state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law under the guise of extending tax benefits or some other license; and any person within its jurisdiction may be deprived of the equal protection of the laws when it is fashionable to do so’,” Burdick wrote.

This should be fun to watch. But who is going to hear the suit? Can a district court apply a law suit to the Supreme Court? And if they lose, can the Supreme Court justices appeal to the Supreme Court?

Federal Judge Orders Alabama Judge to Issue Marriage Licenses to Gays

This was pretty much a predictable outcome. What happens next may be more interesting.

MOBILE, Ala. — A federal judge here ordered a county official in Mobile to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Gay couples waiting for marriage licenses

With the ruling, Judge Callie V. S. Granade of Federal District Court, enjoined the probate judge in Mobile County, Don Davis, from refusing to issue licenses to gay couples seeking to wed.

“Judge Davis may not deny them a license on the ground that Plaintiffs constitute same-sex couples or because it is prohibited by the sanctity of marriage,” the decision said.

The ruling came shortly after Judge Granade heard arguments from lawyers for four same-sex couples seeking to marry and a plea for clarity from the lawyer of a local probate judge. The decision was expected to send a signal to judges statewide who are caught between a federal ruling and an order from Alabama’s chief justice.

Chief Justice Roy Moore of Alabama, who ordered defiance of a same-sex marriage ruling, once fought to keep a Ten Commandments marker in a judicial building.

Judge Granade ruled three weeks ago that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, but a conflicting order from the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy S. Moore, left probate judges, who issue marriage licenses, in confusion. The suit heard Thursday, which named Mr. Davis as a defendant, was intended to seek a clear directive on what probate judges should do.

Some Alabama Judges Issuing Marriage Licenses to Gay Couples

Judges in some counties in Alabama have begun issuing marriage licences to gay couples, despite the state's top judge

ordering them not to.

Chief Justice Roy Moore said judges were not bound by a federal ruling lifting the state's gay marriage ban.

But at least three counties have begun issuing licences after the US Supreme Court refused to put marriages on hold.

Other counties have said they will not marry any couple, according to local media.

James Dansby protests in front of the Jefferson County courthouse as same-sex
couples wait for the doors to open so they can be legally married in Birmingham,
Alabama, 9 February 2015

Judge Moore has been one of the state's most outspoken critics of gay marriage. He called homosexuality an "inherent evil'' in a 2002 custody ruling against a lesbian mother.

But on Monday morning, he was powerless to stop the state becoming the 37th to issue marriage licences.

In Birmingham, one of the first licenses went to Dee and Laura Bush, who have been together for seven years and have five children between them. I wonder what God thinks about lesbian couples having children? I would think that if He wanted that to happen He would have made a way for it to happen naturally. What a dreadful time it is when we find so many ways to subvert God's desires for us.

They wed in a park outside the courthouse where a minister was performing ceremonies.

"It is great that we were able to be part of history," said Dee Bush.

Judges elsewhere were wary or defiant following the federal ruling.

Alabama Sanctity of Marriage holds a rally at the State Capitol Building
in Montgomery on 7 February

Colbert County Probate Judge Douglas Rosser told AL.com he was accepting applications but would not issue licences until there was further clarification.

"There's a conflict, and I want to follow the law," Judge Rosser said. "But it is difficult this morning to follow the law."

One county judge refused to issue any licence not between "one man and one woman only, so help me God", while others declared they would not be marrying any couple - gay or heterosexual.

Gay rights campaigners have been urging judges not to follow
 Chief Justice Roy Moore's directions

On 23 January, Judge Granade said Alabama's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional and should be lifted.

The order was put on hold until 9 February to let the state prepare for the change.

It was the latest in a wave of similar federal rulings across the United States.

In November, however, a federal appeals court based in Cincinnati decided to uphold bans on gay weddings in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

The conflicting rulings among the appeals courts have prompted the US Supreme Court to hear the case later in the year.