Milton Persinger, left, and Robert Povilat wait for a marriage license at the Mobile County Probate office, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015, in Mobile, Ala. A federal judge set a hearing to consider a request... (Associated Press) 
 
 John Humphrey, left, and James Strawser wait for a marriage license along with several other gay couples at the Mobile County Probate office in Mobile, Ala., on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015. Gay rights advocates said they hoped Granade's order would smooth an uneven legal landscape where gay couples have been able to marry in some Alabama counties and not in others. Read the order here 
 
 Davis had kept the marriage license office closed since Monday, when Granade's ruling striking down the state's ban on same-sex marriage was to go into effect. Mobile and other counties had refused to issue the marriage licenses after Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore told probate judges on Sunday they didn't have to because they were not defendants in the original case. Asked outside the courtroom if there as a conceivable scenario under which Davis would not obey a federal court order, Druhan said, "I don't know that he's made a decision."  A federal judge on Thursday ruled that an Alabama county official couldn’t refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, providing clarity to other officials around the state struggling to make sense of conflicting state and federal court orders. Randall Marshall, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said he thought the ruling would give guidance to other probate judges and his group was ready to litigate the case county by county, if necessary.
– It looks like supporters of gay marriage can celebrate again in Alabama. The state has been stuck between two rulings on same-sex marriage—a federal judge said yes-you-can, and a state judge said oh-no-you-can't—and the confusion caused Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis to put everything on hold this week and seek legal clarity. This evening, the federal judge provided it—at least in Mobile County, reports the Wall Street Journal. US District Judge Callie Granade ordered Davis to comply with her original ruling, and the county immediately reopened its marriage license office and began issuing licenses to gay couples, reports AP. What remains unclear is whether probate judges elsewhere in the state will follow suit, reports Al.com. Prior to today, 23 of the state's 67 counties were already complying with Granade's order, while 44 were siding with Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's view that they didn't need to do so. Moore says he's still studying today's ruling, but “I feel just like I felt earlier," he says. "This is a wrongful intrusion into the jurisdiction of the probate courts in Alabama.”