View Comments The day that a federal court order legalized same-sex marriage in Alabama, 50 of the 67 probate judges across the state initially either refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples or stopped issuing the licenses altogether. Many cited an order from then-state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore in defiance of the federal ruling. But in Montgomery, then-Probate Judge Steven Reed saw no controversy. "It was unnecessarily tense," Reed said. By the end of that first day, the county had issued 39 licenses, 31 of them to same-sex couples, including people who camped ou...