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 The Supreme Court earlier in the day cleared the way for Alabama
to become the 37th state where gay marriage is legal by refusing a
request by the state's Republican attorney general to keep weddings
on hold until it decides later this year whether laws banning gay
matrimony violate the U.S. Constitution.
But same-sex couples in more than 50 of Alabama's 67 counties
encountered difficulties in getting marriage licenses, gay rights
advocates said, with some counties refraining from issuing licenses
to gay couples and others shutting down their marriage license
operations altogether.
This followed an order by Roy Moore, the conservative chief justice
of Alabama's Supreme Court, instructing probate judges to issue no
marriage licenses to gay couples despite a federal court ruling in
January throwing out the state's gay marriage ban, effective on
Monday.
Moore's chief of staff said the directive still stood despite
Monday's U.S. Supreme Court action.
 In Birmingham, dozens of same-sex couples married at the courthouse
and an adjacent park, where they were greeted by supporters
supplying cupcakes along with a handful of protesters bearing
crosses and Bibles.
Wiping away tears, Eli Borges Wright, 28, said he was overjoyed to
be marrying the man he has been in a relationship with for seven
years. "After all of these years, I can finally say this is my
husband," he said.
The scene contrasted to that in other parts of the state, from
Tuscaloosa, where gay couples were refused marriage licenses, to
Shelby County, where the marriage license department was shuttered.
In Mobile, attorneys for gay couples filed a federal contempt motion
against Probate Judge Don Davis over the county's marriage license
division being shut, which was denied on technical grounds.
'SOW CONFUSION'
Ronald Krotoszynski, a constitutional law expert at the University
of Alabama School of Law, said state probate judges are obligated to
follow the federal ruling but that many likely fear losing their
elected judgeships by acceding too quickly.
"It makes the courage of the judges that have followed the federal
order all the more remarkable," he said.
Gay rights advocates were critical of judges hindering gay
marriages, and of Moore for provoking them.
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"Justice Moore couched his order in a desire to create clarity, but
its only effect has been to sow confusion," said Adam Talbot, a
Human Rights Campaign spokesman.
Moore is no stranger to controversy. In 2003, he was removed from
office after defying a federal order to take down a Ten Commandments
monument he had erected in the state's judicial building. He was
returned to his post by voters in 2012.
U.S. District Court Judge Callie Granade, an appointee of President
George W. Bush, ruled in January that Alabama's same-sex marriage
prohibition was unconstitutional, putting her decision on hold until
Monday.
Two of the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative justices, Clarence
Thomas and Antonin Scalia, dissented from the decision not to
further delay gay marriage in Alabama.
In a dissenting opinion, Thomas wrote that the high court's actions
in allowing marriages to go ahead "may well be seen as a signal of
the court's intended resolution of that question."
In April, the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in cases
concerning marriage restrictions in four states. A ruling, due by
the end of June, will determine whether the remaining 13 state bans
can remain intact.
(Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington; Writing by
Jonathan Kaminsky; Editing by Will Dunham, Grant McCool and Cynthia
Osterman)
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