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Judge: Same Sex Marriage Legal
Same-sex marriage was ruled legal by another judge in New Mexico Monday. The ruling is the second in less than a week to clarify the state's marriage laws which neither prohibit nor allow same sex marriage.
State District Court Judge Alan Malott asked people in the Albuquerque courtroom to remain silent as he read his decision. He ordered the defendants, the county clerks in two of New Mexico's most populous counties, Bernalillo and Santa Fe, "to issue a marriage license upon application from each couple otherwise qualified without regard to the couple's sexual orientation or the gender of its members."
Last week, a district court judge in New Mexico's capitol, Santa Fe, issued a similar order just days after a county clerk in southern New Mexico decided on his own to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.