Supreme Court asked to overturn landmark same-sex marriage ruling

Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who became a national flashpoint a decade ago for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its landmark 2015 decision recognizing marriage equality.

Attorneys for the ex-Rowan County Clerk have formally petitioned the nation’s highest court to hear her case. Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurring opinion striking down Roe v. Wade in 2022, wrote that the Court should reconsider certain cases based on the same precedent established in Roe.

“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Justice Thomas wrote, referring to cases involving contraception, same-sex relations, and same-sex marriage. “Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous,’ we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”

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ABC News reports that “the justices this fall will consider for the first time whether to take up a case that explicitly asks them to overturn” the Obergefell decision.

Kim Davis, “who was jailed for six days in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple on religious grounds, is appealing a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 for attorneys fees,” ABC notes. “In a petition for writ of certiorari filed last month, Davis argues First Amendment protection for free exercise of religion immunizes her from personal liability for the denial of marriage licenses.”

While some legal experts doubt the Supreme Court will take up Davis’s case, it remains a possibility, especially given the current sentiment in the country, which is seeing some erosion in support for same-sex marriage among the right.

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As NCRM reported in May, public support for marriage equality remains robust at 68 percent—ten points higher than just a month after the 2015 Obergefell decision, though slightly below the all-time high of 71 percent. While Democratic support has continued to climb, Republican backing has declined sharply.

Nearly nine in ten Democrats (88%) say marriages between same-sex couples should be recognized by law as valid, according to Gallup, but less than half that—just 41 percent—of Republicans agree. That’s a fourteen-point drop from the highest level recorded for GOP voters, 55 percent, in 2021 and 2022.

According to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), as of 2022, 35 states have some form of ban on same-sex marriage still on the books, including constitutional amendments and state laws. If Obergefell were overturned, many if not most of those could go back into effect.