Alabama Senate Bill Eliminates the Requirement of Marriage License

Alabama Senate Bill Eliminates the Requirement of Marriage License

The new Alabama Senate Bill 377 eliminates the license requirement for couples wanting to get married.  The Bill was cleared by the State Senate Judicial Committee in last week of April, 2015. The requirement of obtaining license in order to get married is replaced by a marriage contract. The Bill was approved by Republican Senate Greg Albritton.

The Bill would end the requirement that couples must obtain marriage licenses from probate judges. Instead, the intent is to have a legal contract in place of it, witnessed by a clergy member, attorney or notary public, and filed with the state through the probate office. Albritton said his goal is to get the state out of peoples’ lives and prevent Alabama from getting tangled in long-term lawsuits. “The sanctity of marriage cannot be sanctified by government of men. That is where we have gotten ourselves in trouble” said Senator Albritton[1].  He further added that the purpose of Senate Bill 377 is to bring order out of chaos.

If the bill is passed, the marriage contract process wouldn’t change if same-sex marriage became legal again after the Supreme Court decision.

The Alabama Senate Bill 377 is modeled on the basis of the bill which was introduced in Oklahoma’s House of Representatives. Both of these bills take away the authority of probate judges to deny same sex couple to marry or to make same sex marriages legal.