The Supreme Court has declined to hear a bid from anti-LGBTQ activist Kim Davis to challenge its landmark 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide.
The High Court dismissed Davis’s petition without comment on Monday. The decision means that the Obergefell v. Hodges decision will stand for now, after the Court struck fear into the LGBTQ community last week when it privately met to discuss the appeal on Friday.
The Court only needed four justices to agree to revisit the case. The original Obergefell decision was a 5-4 ruling, and several of the justices who dissented still sit on the Court — Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas. Further, one of the judges who ruled in the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was replaced with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Experts were still skeptical that the Court would take up the case. Thomas indicated in his opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson that he wanted the Court to revisit Obergefell, and Davis’s challenge directly cited Thomas’s words.
However, other conservative justices have indicated otherwise in recent months.
Alito recently criticized the decision in a lecture, but said that he didn’t think it should be overruled due to “respect afforded” to precedent. Barrett also suggested recently that she didn’t believe that same sex marriage rights should be overturned.
Davis, represented by right-wing group Liberty Counsel, had filed the appeal seeking to avoid paying hefty fees in relation to her anti-LGBTQ activism. The fees stemmed from a challenge by a couple who she refused a marriage license to shortly after the Obergefell ruling came down in June 2015. Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky, lost that case in 2023, and was ordered to pay the couple $360,000 in damages and legal fees.
Her legal counsel has argued that Davis’s declining to issue a license to same-sex couples is a right afforded to her under the First Amendment, even though legal experts have said that public officials have those rights suspended in order to perform their roles on behalf of the government.
Davis’s legal challenge framed her as a “victim” of the Obergefell decision, adding that her case was a “unique opportunity” to revisit and overturn the decision.
The Supreme Court’s decision was praised by LGBTQ advocates.
“Today, love won again. When public officials take an oath to serve their communities, that promise extends to everyone — including LGBTQ+ people. The Supreme Court made clear today that refusing to respect the constitutional rights of others does not come without consequences,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson in a statement.
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