The Supreme Court on Nov. 10 decided not to revisit Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
The justices, without comment, turned away a petition from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who in 2015 refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. As CatholicVote reported, Davis argued that doing so would violate her deeply held Christian beliefs.
In the writ of certiorari filed Oct. 22, Davis had asked the court to revisit the Obergefell ruling and reverse a lower court’s order that she had to pay $100,000 in emotional damages and $260,000 in legal fees to two men — David Ermold and David Moore — who sued after she denied them a marriage license. She later spent six days in jail for contempt of court.
After losing an appeal in March at the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Davis turned to the Supreme Court, insisting that the First Amendment protects her right to refuse participation in recognizing marriages that violate her religious convictions.
“The Court can and should fix this mistake,” her attorneys wrote in the petition to the high court.
Following Davis’ case, Kentucky passed a law allowing clerks to omit their signatures from marriage licenses, according to The Hill.
Davis’ petition marked the first formal attempt since 2015 to ask the justices to overrule Obergefell, ABC News reported in August. The Obergefell ruling originally drew dissents from Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — all of whom still sit on the court — as well as the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Liberty Counsel, which represented Davis in court, said the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case underscores ongoing threats to religious liberty.
“By denying [Davis’] 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,” Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said in a statement. “This cannot be right because government officials do not shed their constitutional rights upon election.”
He likened Obergefell to Roe v. Wade, arguing that both were “egregiously wrong from the start.”
“This opinion has no basis in the Constitution,” he added. “We will continue to work to overturn Obergefell. It is not a matter of if, but when the Supreme Court will overturn Obergefell.”