Sunday Focus: Probate Judges & Marriage

    

      Alabama's Probate judges are correct in saying they are not obliged to perform actual wedding ceremonies...only to issue marriage licenses.
     But some people say it reminds them of the public parks and swimming pools of 1960's Alabama.
     The Federal Courts ruled that public parks and swimming pools had to be opened to all, that city officials in Montgomery and Birmingham could not operate segregated facilities.

    So they closed some parks and filled in some pools. 
     I was told one of the public pools filled in by shovelfuls of  municipal spite in Birmingham was near where University Boulevard becomes Clairmont Avenue...over where the McDonalds is now.
     In Montgomery, the city fathers shut down the little  Zoo at Oak Park near I-85 rather than allow black children to enjoy the animals. The Wikipedia article about it reports:

"....the zoo had to close down between 1960 and 1971 due to racial violence in the city.^[1]"

    Now some Alabama Probate Judges who say they will hold their noses and do the minimum required on Monday, issuing the same-sex marriage licenses when and if become legal...but will stop performing all weddings so as not to have to marry same-sex couples. Others will go further.
    
     The Elmore County Probate Judge, John Enslen, told Alabama

News Network on Wednesday that:
  "....he doesn't know whether he'll issue the licenses. He says he's still waiting on U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, who is assigned to hear the petitions from Alabama, which is asking the high court for a delay while it appeals." 


     But by Friday, he had apparently decided not to wait. He told The Montgomery Advertiser:

"I will never perform a so-called same-sex marriage. A federal court can put me in jail for life, and I will still never perform a so-called same-sex marriage," (John) Enslen stated. "I hear people saying that I need to be on the right side of history. My reply to that is this: In the end, God is always on the right side of history. It was Sodom and Gomorrah that were on the wrong side of history."

As of Saturday night Sunday Afternoon, no word from Justice Thomas.