Federal Judge Orders Alabama County to Issue Same-Sex Marriage Licenses

— -- A federal judge ordered an Alabama judge today to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples in his county.

U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. Granade has instructed Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

"If Plaintiffs take all steps that are required in the normal course of business as a prerequisite to issuing a marriage license to opposite-sex couples, Judge Davis may not deny them a license on the ground that Plaintiffs constitute same-sex couples or because it is prohibited by the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment and the Alabama Marriage Protection Act or by any other Alabama law or Order pertaining to same-sex marriage," Granade said in the ruling today.

Robert Povilat and his partner Milton Persinger exchanged vows in the atrium of the probate office as the first of several couples to get their marriage license in Mobile County, reports The Associated Press.

"Ecstatic. Ecstatic. We're married," Povilat told the AP.

On Tuesday, the Autauga County Sheriff in Alabama said that an ordained minister was arrested refusing to leave the Autauga County Probate Office, and not for trying to perform a same-sex marriage.

Anne Susan Diprizio, 44, of Prattville, Alabama, was trying to officiate the wedding of a same-sex couple inside the office just after the couple received their marriage license.

Same-sex couples married in some Alabama courthouses this week, but many counties refused to allow the unions despite rulings on Monday from a federal judge and the U.S. Supreme Court to permit them.