Alabama Supreme Court justices have ordered the last probate court judge in the state who had been issuing same-sex marriage licenses in violation of the state law and constitution to cease.

The high court previously ruled U.S. District Judge Callie Granade didn't have the authority to order Alabama probate judges to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Probate Judge Don Davis was an exception, because after Granade decided the federal case brought by same-sex couples, she reopened it to add Davis as a defendant so she could order him to grant licenses to the plaintiffs.

Granade had admitted she lacked jurisdiction over the judges because they were not parties to the case. She said there was no "authority" cited "by which this court can hold Davis in contempt or order any of the relief sought."

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The new ruling sides with Liberty Counsel, which is working on behalf of several citizen groups in Alabama to protect traditional marriage.

The new ruling explains: "Judge Davis has made no showing that the federal court order for which he seeks a stay is one that has not already been executed, i.e., one that concerns any license other than those already issued to the plaintiffs in that case."

The state Supreme Court said its March 3 decision ordering judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples "serves as binding statewide precedent."

"To endure compliance with that precedent, we also entered on that date and as part of our opinion an order specifically directing Alabama probate judges not to issue marriage licenses contrary to that precedent," the court says.

"Davis has made no showing that he was, or is, the subject of any previously entered federal court order other than the one issued in Strawser, and he makes no showing that that order has any continuing, binding effect on him as to any marriage-license applicants beyond the four couples who were the plaintiffs."

The order says the "inapplicability of the federal court order to any other couple is evident from the terms of the order itself."

When the state Supreme Court overruled Granade's order, the justices cited the U.S. Supreme Court's decision striking the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which recognized only the union of a man and a woman as a marriage for federal purposes.

In its order, the Alabama Supreme Court wrote: "An open question exists as to whether Windsor's 'equal dignity' notion works in the same direction toward state laws concerning marriage as it did toward DOMA. The Windsor court stated that 'the history of DOMA's enactment and its own text demonstrate that interference with the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, a dignity conferred by the states in the exercise of their sovereign power, was more than an incidental effect of the federal statute."

The Alabama court noted: "In Windsor, New York's law allowed same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses. Thus, the 'dignity' was conferred by the state's own choice, a choice that was 'without doubt a proper exercise of its sovereign authority within our federal system, all in the way that the Framers of the Constitution intended.'"

But it then raised a question: Why, if New York could make that choice, would Alabama be deprived of exactly the same choice?

"The problem with DOMA was that it interfered with New York's 'sovereign' choice," the court said. "Alabama 'used its historic and essential authority to define the marital relations' and made a different 'sovereign' choice than New York. If New York was free to make that choice, it would seem inconsistent to say that Alabama is not free to make its own choice, especially given that 'the recognition of civil marriages is central to state domestic relations law applicable to its residents and citizens.'"

The problem the argument poses for same-sex marriage advocates is that nearly all orders for states to recognize same-sex marriage have come from federal judges. That's the case in 25 of the 37 states now recognizing same-sex marriage. In most of those states, voters resoundingly rejected it.

Liberty Counsel's founder and chairman, Mat Staver, commended the most recent order.

"Once again the Alabama Supreme Court has upheld natural marriage and the rule of law with unassailable reasoning," he said. "Last week's ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court was a game-changer in the state and perhaps the entire United States. The Supreme Court of Alabama is putting the state judiciary up against the federal judiciary or anyone else who wants to come up with some cockeyed view that somehow the United States Constitution now births some newfound notion of same-sex marriage."

Staver said the marriage licenses already issued to homosexual couples in Alabama by Judge Davis and others are null and void.

"The fact is, it was not legal to issue the same-sex marriage licenses in the first place, and it is not legal now."

Liberty Counsel is representing the Alabama Policy Institute and Alabama Citizens Action Program in the case.

After Granade's decision, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore issued an administrative order halting same-sex marriages, citing court precedent that states are not bound by federal district court decisions, that Granade didn't have the authority for the decision and it violated the state constitution.

He recused himself from the later court decision.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to consider the issue in a few weeks.

The case pending there now is from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed the rights of voters in four states – Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee – to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

The appeals opinion said: "Of all the ways to resolve this question, one option is not available: a poll of the three judges on this panel, or for that matter all federal judges, about whether gay marriage is a good idea. Our judicial commissions did not come with such a sweeping grant of authority, one that would allow just three of us – just two of us in truth – to make such a vital policy call for the thirty-two million citizens who live within the four states of the Sixth Circuit."

Alabama's decision also noted the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled "the states, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, possessed full power over the subject of marriage and divorce … [and] the Constitution delegated no authority to the government of the United States on the subject of marriage and divorce."

WND also reported when several states began looking at legislation that simply would ban any expenditure of state time, assets, resources or funds to implement "gay marriage," even if the U.S. Supreme Court orders it.

Two justices on the U.S. Supreme Court already have taken public actions in support of "gay marriage," officiating at such wedding ceremonies.

The American Family Association launched a campaign offering a way for citizens to tell their representatives in Congress that the two justices shouldn't rule on the case.

"U.S. Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg should recuse themselves from any cases involving the homosexual marriage issue on the basis that they have conducted same-sex marriage ceremonies," the campaign letter states.

Christian evangelist Franklin Graham, who heads both the relief and development group Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, also weighed in.

His Facebook posting challenged the dozens of orders from mostly federal judges across the country that have imposed same-sex marriage on populations that voted against it.

"No earthly court has jurisdiction over the infallible Word of God," he said.