by Erick Eckholm
***Whether the existing federal order is technically binding on state judges is under debate, but on Monday the federal court turned away a brief, from gay rights advocates, calling for contempt charges against a probate judge in Mobile who refused to issue marriage licenses. Instead, gay couples can simply bring new suits in federal court, seeking injunctions to force resisting judges to comply, Mr. Dorf said.
The legal lines between federal courts and state authority are tangled and, especially in the South, bear a heavy weight of history. Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican, complained in a statement on Monday about what he called the Supreme Court’s “cavalier attitude toward the states.”
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