A federal judge in Mobile struck down the state of Alabama’s ban on gay marriage Friday.
U.S. District Judge Callie Granade ruled that Cari Searcy could not be denied a second-parent adoption for a boy she had helped raise since birth, according to a decision filed Friday, Jan. 23.
Searcy and Kimberly McKeand, the co-plaintiff in the case, had both been legally married in California and raised McKeand’s biological child since birth, but the state of Alabama refused to recognize Searcy as the child’s legal parent.
In her ruling, Granade found that Alabama’s Marriage Protection Act and Sanctity of Marriage Amendment violate both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and are therefore unconstitutional.
“Those children currently being raised by same-sex parents in Alabama are just as worthy of protection and recognition by the State as are the children being raised by opposite-sex parents,” Granade wrote.
According to Brendan Kirby of AL.com, Attorney General Luther Strange, the defendant in the case, will request a stay of the decision and continue to fight the case pending a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
