The one holdout was Louisiana. There, Attorney General James "Buddy" Caldwell, a Republican, condemned the Supreme Court's ruling, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, as "federal government intrusion into what should be a state issue."
What's more, Caldwell said, he had read the text of the decision. And he'd found no specific line saying that Louisiana had to obey it.
"Therefore, there is not yet a legal requirement for officials to issue marriage licenses or perform marriages for same-sex couples in Louisiana," Caldwell said in a statement. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican who announced Wednesday that is running for president, criticized the decision itself — but did not comment on Caldwell's strategy to avoid it.
Across the country Friday, some conservatives called for "resistance" to the high court's ruling, which they believed trampled on the Bible and the Constitution's protections of state's rights.
In most places, that didn't happen Friday.
But in several states, conservative officials did try to delay or block the implementation of the new ruling.
In addition to Louisiana, there was Mississippi, where the state blocked almost all same-sex marriages, saying it needed a lower court's permission to proceed. A few same-sex couples in Mississippi did get married in the window between the Supreme Court's ruling and the state's order to stop.
In Alabama, two local officials announced another method of resistance: If they couldn't stop same-sex marriage, they would stop marriage itself.
The two officials said they would no longer issue marriage licenses to anyone, gay or straight, ever again.
"I will not be doing any more ceremonies," said Fred Hamic, elected probate judge in rural Geneva County, Alabama. The other was Wes Allen, the probate judge in Pike County. Both Republicans said state law didn't actually require their county to issue marriage licenses at all. If people wanted to get married, they could go to the next county over.
"If you read your Bible, sir, then you know the logic. The Bible says a man laying with a man or a woman laying with a woman is an abomination to God," Hamic said. "I am not mixing religion with government, but that's my feelings on it."
And then there was Texas, where confusion reigned.
Before the Supreme Court's ruling, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, had warned county clerks not to issue same-sex marriage licenses until he could give them orders.
Then the decision came.
And Paxton gave no orders.
He denounced the decision in general terms, but never told clerks how, or whether, to implement it. That left county officials on their own.
At the Williamson County Clerk's office in Georgetown, just north of Austin, officials said they were not issuing same-sex marriage licenses Friday, pending a review of the Court decision by county officials.
"We're good lawyers, we have to read the whole thing and then issue guidelines," said Brandon Dakroub, first assistant county attorney. The forms would have to be updated, for one thing: the old ones were meant for one man and one woman.
In the meantime, officials had posted a sign in the hallways, telling same-sex couples what to do if they couldn't wait. "Bexar, Travis and Dallas [counties] are issuing if you cannot wait for our software changes," the sign said.
That was true: clerks in more liberal, urban Texas counties had begun issuing licenses anyway, without waiting for guidance from the state capital. But that wasn't always easy. In Harris County, which includes Houston, the county attorney actually ordered the county clerk to begin issuing them. But the clerk refused.
The forms were wrong.
"We were told if we use the wrong form it will be null and void," a deputy clerk told the Houston Chronicle. Later in the afternoon, Harris County began issuing same-sex licenses after all.
Adding to the confusion in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued an memo that required state agencies to respect the "sincere religious beliefs" of people who don't agree with same-sex marriage. But his memo didn't say anything about when or how same-sex couples could actually get married.
Texas state Rep. Cecil Bell — a Republican and a leading voice of resistance to same-sex marriage — said he hoped the state's leaders would try to halt implementation of the ruling.
Somebody would sue, Bell said.
But a suit would take time. And, Bell said, time is their best hope now.
"Hopefully it takes long enough to where we have. . . a situation where the [Supreme] Court changes," because a Republican president appoints new justices who see same-sex marriage differently, Bell said.
In the remaining states that had not permitted same-sex marriage — Georgia, Nebraska, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Ohio, Michigan, South Dakota and North Dakota — state officials said they would carry out the court's ruling.
"Recognizing that there are strong feelings on both sides, it is important for everyone to respect the judicial process and the decision today from the U.S. Supreme Court," Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, said in a statement.
The possibility of a backlash to Friday's ruling was anticipated by Chief Justice John Roberts himself. In a dissent, Roberts said that same-sex marriage already had a lot of political momentum — but that the court's ruling could short-circuit that. "Stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage," he wrote.
Afterward, some conservatives — mainly without political power themselves — said that the only right response was to resist the decision itself.
"I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch," said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican now running for president. "We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat."
Huckabee did not say what, exactly, he meant by "resist." In Arkansas itself at least one county began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Friday.
In other cases, the call was for a kind of second-order resistance. Private citizens couldn't stop the marriages, perhaps, but they could refuse to bake wedding cakes or provide services for the reception.
Or leaders of larger institutions could risk their bottom lines, by refusing to treat same-sex marriages like other marriages.
Rick Scarborough, the leader of a Texas-based group that gathered 55,000 signatures to "defend marriage," said that, for instance, a Christian school could fire an employee if he was married to another man.
"That's what we mean by civilly disobeying. We're not going to change our practice or our pattern to fit the whims of the Supreme Court," Scarborough said. "If you sue us, we'll face the lawsuits, and we'll continue until bankruptcy. . . or jail time, if required."
Scarborough is a minister, but he doesn't have a church of his own to put on the line. Still, he's encouraging others to do it, reminding them of a song about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego — Old Testament figures who were cast into a furnace because they would not renounce God.
"The song we teach our kids is, 'They wouldn't bend, they wouldn't bow, they wouldn't burn,'" he said. In this fight, Scarborough said, Christians may not be that fortunate: "We are not going to bend, we are not going to bow. If necessary, we are going to burn."
But Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said the church should not seek legal confrontations_but rather should focus on a spiritual message, describing the value of heterosexual marriage.
"If the government were to force Christian churches. . .to perform same-sex marriages, then yes, we couldn't do that," Moore said in a conference call with reporters. "That does not mean, though, that. . .we can't obey laws, including bad laws, that we don't agree with."
Bishop Joe Vasquez of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Austin, the largest diocese in Texas, counselled a similar kind of message.
"This causes confusion among those who are faithful to the Gospel and erodes rights of persons in each State," he said, adding that "Jesus taught that from the beginning marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman."
"Regardless of the court's decision, the nature of the human person and marriage remains unchanged and unchangeable," he said.
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Sullivan reported from Georgetown, Texas.
