US Supreme Court Rejects Appeal, Upholds Landmark Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

The United States Supreme Court on Monday declined to revisit its landmark 2015 ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. This decision, made without comment, effectively leaves the constitutional right to marriage equality firmly in place despite pressure from conservative quarters to reverse the precedent.

Dependable NG reports that the Justices turned away a long-shot appeal filed by Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who became a national figure in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, citing her Apostolic Christian faith. Davis had requested the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s order requiring her to pay $360,000 in damages and attorney’s fees to a same-sex couple she had denied a license, arguing that her First Amendment religious rights should shield her from liability.

Davis’s legal team had specifically invoked the past comments of Justice Clarence Thomas, who is the only current Justice to explicitly call for the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling to be overturned. Justice Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justice Samuel Alito were all among the dissenters in the original 2015 case. However, the Court’s decision not to hear the appeal suggests that there is currently insufficient support among the majority to re-examine the marriage equality precedent, which has been relied upon by nearly 800,000 married couples in the US.

The rejection of this appeal provides a degree of reassurance to LGBTQ+ rights advocates, who have expressed anxiety about the potential for reversal, particularly after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the court after the 2015 decision, has previously suggested that same-sex marriage may be in a different legal category than abortion because many Americans have relied on the ruling in their family lives.

Davis’s refusal nearly a decade ago led to a lengthy legal battle, contempt of court charges that resulted in her brief jailing, and legislative changes in Kentucky that eventually removed clerks’ names from marriage licenses statewide to provide an accommodation for religious objectors. She ultimately lost her bid for re-election in 2018. The Supreme Court’s latest decision reaffirms that public officials cannot ignore the constitutional rights of citizens, regardless of their personal religious objections.