The United States Supreme Court has declined to reconsider its landmark decision from a decade ago that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The court rejected an appeal from Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk, who was ordered by a lower court to compensate a same-sex couple after she refused to issue their marriage license. Davis maintained that same-sex marriage conflicted with her Apostolic Christian beliefs.
The 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges was a major victory for LGBTQ rights, ensuring constitutional protection for same-sex marriages. However, some conservatives claim the ruling infringes on religious freedoms. Davis’s appeal came after a civil rights lawsuit filed by David Ermold and David Moore, who accused her of violating their constitutional right to marry.
Davis stated that granting such licenses would be an act of disobedience to her faith. Nevertheless, in 2022, federal Judge David Bunning rejected her claim that her religious rights shielded her from liability. He emphasized that Davis could not use her constitutional protections to deny others their rights in her official capacity.
Ultimately, Davis was ordered to pay $360,000 in damages and legal fees and served six days in jail for contempt of court. The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled against her. In the Supreme Court appeal, Davis’s lawyers described the right to same-sex marriage as a “legal fiction.”
Despite having a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, justices chose not to revisit the Obergefell ruling. This decision followed heightened concerns after the 2023 overturning of the abortion right by the same court. Obergefell was decided by a 5-4 vote in 2015, with retired Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the liberal justices, emphasizing that denying marriage rights condemned gay individuals to loneliness and denied them equal dignity under the law.
Chief Justice John Roberts and other conservative justices dissented then, criticizing the court for mandating a change in the definition of marriage. However, the current Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Davis’s challenge reaffirms the constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry, preserving a decade of legal precedent protecting LGBTQ families.
