The Supreme Court on Monday quietly turned away a high-profile challenge to same-sex marriage, leaving the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling intact and nationwide marriage laws unchanged.
The case centered on Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who made headlines in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples following the Supreme Court’s narrow 5-4 decision legalizing same-sex marriage across the U.S.
At the time, 14 states were forced to alter their laws to comply with the ruling.
Davis’s petition asked the Court to overturn a lower court ruling that ordered her to pay $360,000 in damages and legal fees to a same-sex couple she refused to serve, David Moore and David Ermold. Davis had told the couple she was acting “under God’s authority” and suggested they obtain a license elsewhere.
After the initial controversy, she even began denying licenses to straight couples as well, per the Daily Mail.
The Supreme Court, in a routine decision, announced it would not consider her petition and offered no explanation—a typical procedure that leaves the Court’s internal deliberations opaque.
This silence fuels speculation about whether any justices favored reviewing the case.
Davis’s legal team leaned on the Court’s past words, noting that several justices had dissented from the 2015 Obergefell decision.
Justice Clarence Thomas, a noted conservative, was among the four dissenters, arguing that the choice to allow same-sex marriages should be left to individual states.
Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, and the late Justice Antonin Scalia also opposed the ruling at the time.
The legal challenge came amid a Supreme Court that is markedly more conservative than in 2015, raising questions about whether a successful challenge was even possible. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, for instance, has signaled a willingness to revisit previous decisions deemed problematic.
The Court’s recent overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, which ended federally protected abortion rights, demonstrated its readiness to reverse landmark rulings.
Davis’s attorney, Mat Staver, decried the Supreme Court’s rejection as “heartbreaking for Kim Davis and for religious freedom.” He reiterated his commitment to challenging the Obergefell decision, declaring, “Like the abortion issue in Roe v. Wade, the Obergefell opinion has no basis in the US Constitution. Marriage should have never been federalized.”
Staver’s petition, filed over the summer, framed the Obergefell decision as an overreach that produces real-world consequences for religious Americans.
He wrote, “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. And, until the Court revisits its creation of atextual constitutional rights, Obergefell will continue to have ruinous consequences for religious liberty.”
Despite the setback, Davis and her supporters argue that the ruling undermines fundamental freedoms of conscience and religious expression. They view it as a continuation of the same federal overreach exemplified in decisions like Roe, which, in their opinion, disregarded states’ rights and individual liberties.
