The Supreme Court has officially rejected a high-profile appeal that aimed to overturn the landmark 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. That’s right, the justices turned away the appeal on Monday without any comment, shutting down what many considered a long-shot attempt to dismantle the precedent set by Obergefell v. Hodges.
This news is a massive relief, and was first reported by NBC News. Fears that the court might revisit the marriage equality decision have been running incredibly high ever since the devastating 2022 ruling that overturned the abortion rights decision, Roe v. Wade.
The anxiety spiked further when conservative Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in his concurring opinion in the abortion ruling that Obergefell and similar cases should be revisited. That was awful for everyone’s anxiety levels, and it brought considerable attention to this specific appeal, which was brought a decade after the initial controversy began.
Rights are rights, and they’re here to stay
Despite those worries and the court’s existing 6-3 conservative majority, it looks like the justices weren’t interested in tackling this issue right now. None of the other justices supported Thomas’s suggestion to revisit Obergefell. In fact, Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the abortion ruling, indicated just last month that he wasn’t pushing for same-sex marriage to be overturned. That’s a top-tier indication that this particular challenge wasn’t going anywhere.
The appeal was brought by Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky. Davis became nationally known in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses immediately after the Obergefell decision came down. Represented by the conservative group Liberty Counsel, Davis, who identifies as a conservative Christian, claimed her religious beliefs meant she shouldn’t have to put her name on licenses for same-sex couples.
Her office in Rowan County, Kentucky, denied licenses to multiple couples, including David Moore and David Ermold. They promptly filed a civil rights lawsuit. Davis was actually ordered by a judge to issue the license but defied the court injunction, refusing to comply. Because she refused, the judge held her in contempt, and she spent six days in jail. While she was jailed, Moore and Ermold were finally able to get their license.
Even though the state eventually changed the law to allow licenses to be issued without the clerk’s name, Davis’s legal fight wasn’t over. Moore and Ermold continued to seek damages for the initial refusal. After lengthy litigation, a jury awarded $100,000 in damages against Davis. Her lawyers also reported that she was required to pay an additional $260,000 in attorney’s fees.
Davis then appealed, claiming that she should have been allowed to use her First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion as a defense. She lost that appeal at the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March this year. When she turned to the Supreme Court, she raised both the religious defense question and the much more contentious issue of overturning Obergefell.
Published: Nov 10, 2025 05:18 pm