The Supreme Court has declined to reconsider the 2015 decision that established same-sex marriage rights nationwide, rejecting an appeal from a former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples following the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. The case centered on Kim Davis, who faced substantial financial penalties for denying licenses to a same-sex couple.
Davis’s legal team argued that her religious convictions justified her refusal, but the court did not provide reasoning for its decision. Her attorneys cited Justice Clarence Thomas, the only justice who has explicitly called for overturning the same-sex marriage ruling, though Thomas was among four dissenters in 2015. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito also dissented at the time but have since remained silent or avoided advocating for reversal.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the court after the 2015 decision, has previously suggested the court should correct past errors, as seen in the 2022 ruling that ended federal abortion protections. Davis’s lawyers claimed her case warranted review, noting she was jailed and ordered to pay $100,000 in damages after refusing to issue licenses in 2015.
The appeal, deemed unlikely to succeed, had sparked speculation about the court’s conservative majority revisiting the Obergefell decision, particularly amid recent shifts in judicial priorities. However, the high court’s refusal to act reaffirmed the enduring legal framework for same-sex marriage rights.