The Alabama Supreme Court on Tuesday defied the nation's highest tribunal and ordered that marriage licenses no longer be issued to same-sex couples in the state, the Washington Post reported.

The ruling comes some three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a stay on a decision by U.S. District Judge Callie Granade, who had overturned Alabama's ban on such unions. Although a significant number of probate judges had initially refused to issue the licenses, most of them obeyed when Granade directed Mobile County's Don Davis to do so, Reuters recalled.

But Tuesday's decision may reignite the "confusion and resistance" that have marked a "wild month" in the Heart of Dixie, the Washington Post noted. The justices who agreed on the majority opinion showed themselves defiant, the newspaper added.

"As it has done for approximately two centuries, Alabama law allows for 'marriage' between only one man and one woman," the court wrote. The state's judges have a duty "not to issue any marriage license contrary to this law. Nothing in the United States Constitution alters or overrides this duty."

The 134-page order was supported by six justices, CNN detailed. There was one dissenter, and one justice concurred to most of the opinion and in total to the result, the news channel said.

Technically, the state Supreme Court granted an emergency petition by two Alabama groups opposed to same-sex marriage, Reuters explained. Couples who had already received marriage licenses were unlikely to be affected by the decision, Ronald Krotoszynski, a constitutional law expert at the University of Alabama School of Law, told the newswire.

How the legal saga might proceed, meanwhile, is largely unclear. The issue may eventually be put to rest when the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the legality of same-sex marriage bans, as it is expected to do in June.

Gay rights advocates were highly critical of the Tuesday's ruling, Reuters reported. The National Center for Lesbian Rights said in a statement that the Alabama justices had put themselves "on the wrong side of history."

"The only question is not whether marriage equality will return to Alabama, but how quickly," the advocacy group added.