Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis makes a statement to the media at the front door of the Rowan County Judicial Center in Morehead, Ky., in September 2015.
Timothy D. Easley/AP
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Timothy D. Easley/AP
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a case challenging its landmark decision to legalize gay marriage nationwide.
The challenge to the court’s 2015 ruling came from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky clerk who refused to issue same-sex licenses after the court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
In the aftermath of her refusal, Davis was jailed for acting in contempt of court and lost her clerk re-election. A jury also ordered her to pay $360,000 to a couple who she refused to marry. Davis attempted to get out of paying this verdict by additionally requesting that the court assert that she has a First Amendment religious protection from liability for her actions.
The court declined her petition without comment.
Davis has long argued that religious liberties conflict with Obergefell.
“If ever there was a case of exceptional importance, the first individual in the Republic’s history who was jailed for following her religious convictions regarding the historic definition of marriage, this should be it,” she argued in her petition before the court.
She is not alone in wanting to challenge the legality of same-sex marriage. According to Lambda Legal, which advocates for gay rights, in this year alone at least nine states have entertained bills or resolutions criticizing Obergefell or have sought to limit marriage to heterosexual couples. On Oct. 24, the Supreme Court of Texas adopted language allowing judges to refuse to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies due to religious beliefs.
In his concurring opinion in the case that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas expressly stated that the Supreme Court should reconsider its stances on birth control, same-sex marriage, and same-sex intimacy.
Had the Supreme Court decided to hear Davis’ case and later overturn Obergefell, same-sex marriage would still be protected on the federal level. In 2022, former President Joe Biden signed into law the Respect for Marriage Act, which repeals the Defense of Marriage Act and recognizes the legitimacy of same-sex and interracial marriages. If Obergefell was overturned, however, individual states could refuse to recognize same-sex marriages.
The court’s decision to not hear Davis’s petition means that the constitutionality of same-sex marriage is reaffirmed, at least for now.
