Gay Marriage in Alabama Begins, but Only in Parts

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Despite a federal judge’s rulings legalizing same-sex marriage, most probate judges in Alabama on Monday refused to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, escalating a legal showdown that echoed the battles over desegregation here in the 1960s.

Although court officials in some of the state’s largest cities — including Birmingham, Huntsville and Montgomery — quickly issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples, up to 52 of Alabama’s 67 counties, according to the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, declined to process the required paperwork.

It was unclear how many of the judges were acting out of overt defiance and how many were simply weighing how to navigate a freshly jumbled legal landscape after Chief Justice Roy S. Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court on Sunday ordered the judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

“We’ve got Alabama’s chief justice issuing an order, and we’ve got an order out from a federal judge,” said Judge Greg Norris of Monroe County, who is also president of the Alabama Probate Judges Association. “It’s just a very difficult situation.”

The day of escalating events began when the United States Supreme Court said it would not block the ruling by Judge Callie V. S. Granade of Federal District Court, who last month declared Alabama’s marriage restrictions to be unconstitutional.

To some, including Justice Clarence Thomas, who offered a spirited dissent, the failure to order a stay was the strongest signal to date that the court is likely to establish a nationwide right to same-sex marriage. “The court looks the other way as yet another federal district judge casts aside state laws without making any effort to preserve the status quo pending the court’s resolution of a constitutional question it left open in United States v. Windsor,” he wrote, referring to a 2013 decision.

“This acquiescence,” Justice Thomas added, “may well be seen as a signal of the court’s intended resolution of that question.”

Clarity was hard to come by in Alabama, however.

At the Jefferson County Courthouse here, Judge Michael G. Graffeo of Circuit Court officiated, at times tearfully, at the civil wedding of Dinah McCaryer and Olanda Smith, the first to emerge from the crowd of same-sex couples on Monday morning. “I now pronounce Olanda and Dinah are married spouses, entitled to all rights and privileges, as well as all responsibilities, afforded and placed upon them by the State of Alabama,” Judge Graffeo said.

On the other hand, in Florence, in the northwest corner of the state, Judge James Hall of probate court explained to Beth Ridley and Rose Roysden that he would not issue a license, saying, “I’m caught up in the middle of this.” The emotional couple said they would drive to Birmingham, and marry there.

At the center of the turmoil was Chief Justice Moore. On Sunday, less than 12 hours before many courthouses here were scheduled to open, he ordered Alabama’s probate judges not to comply with Judge Granade’s rulings, which he said were incompatible with the scope of her authority.

His position on the balance of state and federal power is one that is deeply felt in a region with a history of claiming states’ rights in opposition to the federal government, and in a state where, more than 50 years ago, Gov. George C. Wallace blocked an entrance to the University of Alabama in a failed bid to block its federally ordered integration.

Although Chief Justice Moore’s Alabama is a different state from the one Wallace led, the state’s top jurist used a stream of letters, orders and opinions to insist that in the same-sex marriage cases, Judge Granade, an appointee of President George W. Bush, had moved beyond her jurisdiction. The chief justice’s opposition helped fuel a debate here in recent weeks focused, in part, on religious values, the state’s place in history and how to square its mistrust of the federal government with the orders that made it the 37th state to allow same-sex marriages.

“This case is about the federal court’s violation of their own rules,” the chief justice said in an interview on Monday, a day after he urged Alabama’s Republican governor, Robert Bentley, to “ensure the execution of the law” by probate judges.

In a statement, though, Mr. Bentley said he would “not take any action against probate judges, which would only serve to further complicate this issue.”

But even before Mr. Bentley’s support for the probate judges became public, some had already concluded that they would flout the chief justice, who was ousted from the bench more than a decade ago after he refused to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from a Montgomery building. (He won an election in 2012 and returned to his post.)

“At the end of the day, it’s still a very simple legal analysis: You’ve got a federal court order,” said Judge Alan L. King of Jefferson County, who added: “This is a happy day for all of these couples, and if you can’t be happy for people, then I’m sorry. If someone can’t understand the joy and happiness of others, then I don’t know what else I can say.”

David Dinielli, the deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said, “The chief justice has decided to make a spectacle of himself, the Alabama judiciary and the state.”

But the chief justice’s order reverberated elsewhere, in places like Elmore County, where Judge John E. Enslen said he would not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

“The federal judiciary has no authority under the Constitution to inquire into a state’s reasoning for its public policy positions on marriage any more than the federal judiciary could question Alabamians’ selection of a state bird,” Judge Enslen said in an email.

In many counties, judges said they were out of the marriage business — for anyone — for now.

“We don’t have any appointments, and we have a sign up saying that we aren’t issuing any licenses at this time,” Probate Judge Wes Allen of Pike County said.

In Mobile County, two lawyers asked Judge Granade to hold Judge Don Davis, who said he was “committed to applying the law in all judicial and ministerial actions,” in contempt because he did not open his office’s marriage license division on Monday. (She refused, saying that Judge Davis was not a party to the litigation before her.)

Although Monday’s tumult and theatrics summoned recollections of Alabama’s failed quest five decades ago to repel federally ordered desegregation, legal experts said the situation here was unlikely to become a full-scale and enduring repeat of the disputes that shook the state then.

“The principle has now been well established that the states are subject to the superior command of the federal Constitution,” said Dale Carpenter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota. “Southern states will be reluctant to be seen as returning to the civil rights-era confrontations with the federal government.”

For many couples, some of whom joined lines outside courthouses before sunrise, the legal questions about matrimony were distant. A few protesters sometimes drew close in a state where, in 2006, 81 percent of voters approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

“Turn to Jesus, my friends,” David Day, 38, shouted in Montgomery. A woman moments away from marrying, Tori Sisson, replied, “We love you!”

And even some of those buffeted by the chaos felt relieved by day’s end.

Ms. Ridley and Ms. Roysden, the couple who had been turned away in Florence in the morning, indeed made it to Birmingham later in the day.

Holding hands and grasping bouquets — pink roses for Ms. Roysden and white for Ms. Ridley — the couple stood in Birmingham’s Linn Park and exchanged vows.

“I now announce you, finally, partners forever,” the Rev. Stewart Russell, the celebrant, said.

The women, who exchanged identical diamond bands, shared a quick kiss and smiled before Ms. Ridley’s 8-year-old daughter, Sadie, jumped into her mother’s arms and cried.

“Oh, I’m glad you’re happy,” Ms. Ridley said.

Alan Blinder reported from Birmingham, and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Reporting was contributed by Richard Fausset from Montgomery, Ala.; Jennifer Crossley Howard from Florence, Ala.; Kalyn Wolfe from Troy, Ala.; Damien Cave from New York; Erik Eckholm from Los Angeles; and Adam Liptak from Rome.

A version of this article appears in print on February 10, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Gay Marriage in Alabama Begins, but Only in Parts.