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(JD Crowe/jdcrowe@al.comD)

A federal judge has ruled that Alabama's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

While state leaders have decried the subversion of the will of the majority, that is precisely the point of the court ruling -- and the U.S. Constitution -- that the majority cannot impose its will on minorities when it comes to fundamental rights. While some voicing this don't understand the laws at work here, surely those such as Gov. Robert Bentley, Speaker Mike Hubbard and other legislators do.

This principle underpins the very foundation of America. The Declaration of Independence says everyone in this great country has certain "unalienable rights." Unalienable. That means these rights can be neither taken away nor given away by the will of the people or the laws of state governments.

Among these rights is equality. That includes, especially, equality under the law. That America's legal framework of marriage is denied to gay citizens denies their equality. The Constitution forbids this.

Much is being made of a provision in the Alabama constitution that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. This amendment was approved by an overwhelming majority of voters statewide in 2006. But the state constitution does not prevail over the American constitution. And the American constitution provides that unalienable rights cannot be taken away by a vote of the majority, even in the guise of an individual state's laws.

Much is being made, too, of the notion that a single unelected judge, appointed by the federal government, should not be able to overturn the "will of the majority." But again, this is precisely what the constitution provides for -- judges rule on interpretations of our laws, and especially on how our unalienable rights must be protected.

The judge in this case -- US. District Judge Ginny Granade of the Southern district court in Mobile -- was born in Virginia, educated in Texas and worked in Louisana before coming to Alabama in 1976. She was nominated to her current role in 2002 by President George W. Bush, recommended to him by Alabama Senators Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby -- far from an outsider liberal imposed on the South and Alabama.

Bentley and his government are moving quickly to seek a stay of this judgement and plan an appeal. This is a waste of the state's money, and they know it. They are pandering to what they see as a majority opposed to gay rights, knowing that in the end the U.S. Supreme Court will decide the matter. And it will do so soon; that court recently agreed to hear cases this spring, with a judgment expected by this summer.

We believe the Supreme Court will rightly hold that the unalienable rights of Americans include the right to marry, for all. Since the legal framework of marriage is provided by our governments, it must provide for equality.

Some argue that when the Declaration and Constitution were written, the framers did not conceive that their notion of rights extended to gay men and women, and marriage. No doubt true. For many at that time, such thinking did not even extend to equality for America's black citizens.

But when America moved to right that wrong, Alabama stayed on the wrong side of history for too long (and our own 1901 state constitution purported to forbid interracial marriage until 2000, long after that had been rendered unenforceable by the Supreme Court.)

Alabama should consider whether it wishes to be in that place again. Times change, and the notion that laws should be interpreted within the nature of those times is also part of America's Constitution. The first words of the Declaration of Independence are: "When in the course of human events..."

In the course of human events, it is time for gay men and women in America to stand equal. Laws that impede this are not in line with our Constitution, and must fall.