Supreme Court won't hear challenge to landmark gay marriage ruling
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider a challenge to its landmark 2015 decision recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
The announcement indicates there is not an appetite among the high court’s conservative majority to revisit the case known as Obergefell v. Hodges, one of the court’s most significant decisions in recent years.
Legal experts had said for months that there was little chance of the current high court reconsidering the Obergefell ruling, but even the slim possibility had created considerable anxiety among many same-sex couples.
Since the marriage case was decided, the court has moved significantly to the right. Three of the five justices who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage rights—Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer—are no longer on the court, and their replacements are each more conservative.
But the chances of the justices taking another look at same-sex marriage were considered especially slim given the legal context of the current case. The request to reconsider the ruling came from a county clerk in Kentucky, Kim Davis, who stopped issuing marriage licenses shortly after the Supreme Court’s ruling. Among the couples she refused licenses to were David Moore and David Ermold. Davis told them she was acting “under God’s authority.”
Moore and Ermold sued Davis, arguing she violated their constitutional right to marry. A federal court in Kentucky ruled for the couple, and a jury awarded them damages of $50,000 apiece in 2023.
Davis appealed, saying that issuing the couple a marriage license would have violated her right to freely exercise her religion, but an appeals court ruled against her. The appeals court found Davis was acting as an agent of the state, so she was not protected by First Amendment rights.
Davis then asked the Supreme Court to take up her case.
Lambda Legal, a group that advocates for LGBTQ+ people, praised the high court for rejecting the case. Kevin Jennings, the group’s chief executive, said the decision not to hear the “frivolous case” was a victory “for everyone who believes in our constitution and the rule of law.”
“The court’s decision reaffirms a simple fact: Equal protection of the law applies to all, not just some,” Jennings said in a statement.
Jennings also signaled that he did not believe the court’s rejection of Davis’s case would put an end to efforts to challenge same-sex marriage.
“Our opponents are well-resourced and determined” and will “keep trying to undo the progress we’ve made,” he said.
On that point, Mat Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, the legal group representing Davis, agreed with Jennings, vowing to “continue to work to overturn Obergefell.”
“It is not a matter of if but when the Supreme Court will overturn Obergefell,” Staver said as he sharply criticized the high court’s decision not to consider the case.
“By denying this petition, the high court has let stand a decision to strip a government defendant of their immunity and any personal First Amendment defense for their religious expression,” Staver said.
See also:
Once-jailed county clerk asks Supreme Court to overturn right to same-sex marriage
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