Those pesky conservatives, all about religious liberty and small government, except when they aren't. Anne DiPrizio can testify to just how big they are, after being arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for the terrible crime of trying to perform a same-sex marriage.
The Montgomery Advertiser reports:
Deputies were called to the probate office, which is located one block from the courthouse, about 10:30 a.m. Probate Judge Al Booth asked for assistance, Hill said.
"Judge Booth said there was a lady in the office who wouldn't leave when he asked her to leave," Hill said.
Deputies asked Diprizio to leave several times, but she refused. When Capt. Tom Allen told her she was either going to leave the office or be arrested, she got up from the chair she was sitting in and kneeled in the floor. Allen handcuffed her and led her across the street to the Autauga Metro Jail.
Courtney Cannon and Morgan Plunkett had received a marriage license from the probate office, and Cannon said Diprizio offered to perform the ceremony inside the probate office.
The Autauga County Probate Office stopped performing all marriage ceremonies on Friday. Booth then said the decision to stop performing the ceremonies was related to work flow, not a recent federal court order lifting the state's ban on same sex marriages.
"I don't even know her name, but she said she was an ordained minister and wanted to marry us," Cannon said of Diprizio. "She was standing up for our rights to get married. Judge Booth called the deputies after he told her to leave."
Of course, this wouldn't have been a problem after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to issue a stay, except for the fact that "Ten Commandments" Judge and now Chief Justice Roy Moore has ordered all probate judges not to issue any marriage licenses to same sex couples.
In this case, the couple did receive a license and was merely trying to go through with the ceremony. I doubt the outcome would have been the same if they were a heterosexual couple.
What will Alabama do when the Supreme Court upholds these couples' right to marry? Refuse all marriages in the state? That ought to sit well.
