Buried amid the extensive legal wrangling over same-sex marriage this week came an interesting side question raised by an Alabama Supreme Court justice: Does last month's federal ruling threaten the constitutionality of all marriages?

Justice Glenn Murdock raised the possibility in a concurring opinion when the full court declined to issue a "clarification" of Chief Justice Roy Moore's order instructing probate judges to ignore U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. "Ginny" Granade's ruling striking down the state's same-sex marriage ban.

Murdock agreed with his colleagues that the request by Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis to review Moore's administrative order was improper because only the governor or Legislature can do so. But he wrote separately, in part, to discuss the possibility that "considering the meaning of the term 'marriage' intended by the Legislature in those statutes, they may be deemed to survive, or must be stricken as wholly void, if they are not to be applied solely to a union between a man and a woman."

Murdock cited a 1945 case, A. Bertolla & Sons v. State, which the court held that a law is unconstitutional in its entirety if "the invalid potion is so important to the general plan and operation of the law in its entirety as reasonably to lead to the conclusion that it would not have been adopted if the legislature had perceived the invalid part so held to be unconstitutional."

Justice Glenn Murdock ... questions impact of gay marriage ruling.

The court at the time described the circumstances under which a law could be saved if part of it were declared unconstitutional. "The test is ... whether the legislature would have passed the statute without" the unconstitutional part.

So the potential question in the gay marriage case would be whether the Legislature would have codified marriage as a legal institution if it had been available more broadly than one man and one woman.

Murdock's musings have no immediate bearing on the issue.

"These questions, however, are not before us in an adversary proceeding or in the context of a request for an advisory opinion by the Governor or the Legislature," he wrote.

"Nor has here been a showing that these questions are properly before us on some other basis."

Legal experts agreed that in order to strike down all Alabama marriage law, it would take a separate lawsuit challenging it. A pair of experts said it would be difficult for someone to demonstrate that he suffered harm from marriage law that would allow him to sue in the first place.

What's more, they said, it is questionable whether a court would buy the argument.

"I don't find it a particularly persuasive or compelling argument," said Ronald Krotoszynski, a University of Alabama School of Law professor. "It's virtually unimaginable to me. ... It would be a remarkably bold step for a court to take."

Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, said there is a body of case law and legal tradition encouraging judges to uphold laws whenever possible.

"The courts are supposed to save the statutes if they can. But sometimes, it's so central that it's not possible," he said.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts cited that very principle in his decision upholding the Affordable Care Act.

Tobias said that at first blush, he thinks Granade's ruling on same-sex marriage dealt with the law and constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, not marriage law, itself.

"Most of what was invalidated was the bans," he said.

Krotoszynski and Tobias both said they are unaware of any serious argument made in other states that striking down same-sex marriage bans would invalidate marriage laws generally. Krotoszynski said he read a law review article that raised the possibility that states would get out of the marriage business. But he said he finds it highly unlikely.

"The institution of marriage is so deeply rooted in Anglo-American law that the notion that the state would step away from it is a heavy lift," he said.

David Kennedy, an attorney who represented plaintiffs Cari Searcy and Kim McKeand in the suit that prompted Granade's ruling, also downplayed the significance of the issues Murdock raised.

"I really don't believe that to be necessarily the case at all," he said, adding that 36 other states have adopted same-sex marriage without imperiling marriage laws.

Who would go to court to make such a claim? Krotoszynski speculated that perhaps a bitter unmarried person upset that he did not qualify for tax breaks or other benefits might pursue such a claim.

Tobias suggested that perhaps a legislator unhappy with the gay marriage ruling could try to get all marriage laws thrown and give the Legislature a chance to write new laws that somehow could pass constitutional muster without give same-sex couples equal rights.

"It would buy time," he said. "It's a different way to skin a cat."