Supreme Court rejects long-shot effort to overturn same-sex marriage ruling

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a long-shot attempt to overturn the landmark 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

Without comment, the justices rejected an appeal brought by Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky who was sued in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses because of her opposition to same-sex marriage based on her religious beliefs.

Her latest appeal in the case, brought a decade later, had attracted considerable attention amid fears that the court could overturn the 2015 same-sex marriage decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, in the aftermath of the 2022 ruling that overturned the landmark abortion rights decision, Roe v. Wade.

Some LGBTQ activists have pointed to conservative Justice Clarence Thomas’ suggestion in his concurring opinion in the decision overturning Roe that Obergefell and some other cases should also be revisited as a cause for concern.

Although the court has a 6-3 conservative majority, none of the other justices joined Thomas’ opinion.

Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal organization representing Davis, said in a statement that he would continue efforts to overturn Obergefell.

"Like the abortion decision in Roe v. Wade, Obergefell was egregiously wrong from the start. This opinion has no basis in the constitution," he added.

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The Supreme Court's action was welcomed by LGBTQ advocates.

"Today, the Supreme Court affirmed what we all know: marriage equality is the law of the land," Kevin Jennings, CEO of Lambda Legal, said in a statement.

Just last month, Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the abortion ruling, indicated he was not pushing for Obergefell to be overturned.

Davis refused to issue any marriage licenses in the immediate aftermath of the Obergefell decision. She said that as a conservative Christian who opposed same-sex marriage, she should have a religious right not to put her name on marriage licenses involving same-sex couples.

Her office in Rowan County, Kentucky, denied licenses to several such couples, including David Moore and David Ermold, who subsequently filed a civil rights lawsuit.

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Davis was ordered to issue a license for Moore and Ermold, but defied the court injunction and still refused to do so. The judge then held her in contempt, and she was jailed for six days.

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While she was jailed, Moore and Ermold were able to obtain their marriage license.

Subsequently, the state changed the law in order to address the controversy, allowing for a license to be issued without the clerk’s name on it.

But Davis’ case continued, with Moore and Ermold seeking damages for the initial refusal.

After lengthy litigation, a jury awarded $100,000 in damages. Davis was also required to pay $260,000 in attorney’s fees, according to her lawyers.

Davis then appealed, claiming that she should have been able to cite as a defense her right to the free exercise of religion under the Constitution’s First Amendment.

After losing an appeal at the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March this year, Davis turned to the Supreme Court, raising that question, as well as the much more contentious issue of whether Obergefell should be overturned.

With the Supreme Court appeal now over, the case will return to the lower court where Moore and Ermold, who declined to comment on the latest action in the case, will seek to collect the damages they are owed.

While the Supreme Court has for now given no indication it would seek to overturn Obergefell, it has in other rulings in the last decade strengthened religious rights at the expense of LGBTQ rights, including by expanding the ability of people to seek exemptions from laws they object to because of their faith.