The Supreme Court has declined to revisit a significant ruling that legalized same-sex marriage across the United States, delivering its decision on Monday.
This challenge originated from Kim Davis, a Kentucky court clerk who, following the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The Obergefell v. Hodges case, decided by a narrow 5-4 vote, required 14 states to amend their laws to permit same-sex marriages.
On Monday, the Supreme Court’s nine justices opted not to hear Davis’s appeal.
As is customary, the justices did not offer an explanation for their decision to reject the case.
The absence of commentary leaves it unclear if any justices were inclined to reconsider the 2015 ruling.
The Kentucky woman has sought relief from the Supreme Court after a lower court ruled she must pay $360,000 for damages and legal fees to a couple that she denied a marriage license.
Davis told David Moore and David Ermold, the couple to whom she denied a license, that she was acting ‘under God’s authority’ and suggested they get a license in a different county.
Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis makes a statement to the media at the front door of the Rowan County Judicial Center in Morehead, Ky., Sept. 14, 2015
The Supreme Court rejected an effort to overturn a landmark 2022 decision that legalized same sex marriage nationwide on Monday
After the incident, she began denying licenses to straight couples as well.
Davis’s lawyers used some Supreme Court justices’ words against them in their challenge, as some had publicly opposed the original 2015 ruling.
Davis’s legal representation noted in their arguments that Justice Clarence Thomas, a noted conservative, was among the four Supreme Court members to dissent in the 2015 decision, arguing that the choice to allow same-sex marriages should be left with the states.
Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and late Justice Antonin Scalia all dissented.
Since the 2015 decision was made, the Supreme Court has become notably more conservative, leading to questions about whether the challenge would be successful.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett has signaled her openness to reviewing past decisions made by the court that members of the panel view as problematic.
In 2022, for example, the Supreme Court overturned its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized abortion.
The revision stripped away the constitutionally protected right to abortion that had been the norm for the previous half-century.
Davis’ lawyer Mat Staver warned that she ‘now faces crippling monetary damages based on nothing hurt feelings.’
He called the Supreme Court’s decision ‘heartbreaking for Kim Davis and for religious freedom.’
‘We are committed to overturning Obergefell,’ Staver said in a statement. ‘Like the abortion issue in Row v. Wade, the Obergefell opinion has no basis in the US Constitution. Marriage should have never been federalized.’
In a petition filed to the Supreme Court over the summer, Staver argued against gay marriage on religious grounds.
‘This flawed opinion has produced disastrous results leaving individuals like Davis “find[ing] it increasingly difficult to participate in society without running afoul of Obergefell and its effect on other antidiscrimination laws,”‘ it read.
‘And, until the Court revisits its “creation of atextual constitutional rights,” Obergefell will continue to have ruinous consequences for religious liberty.’
