The Supreme Court has turned down a bid to have the justices revisit the court’s landmark decision a decade ago that guaranteed the right to same-sex marriage nationwide.
The high court on Monday turned down a petition from Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky who objected on religious grounds to issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis urged the court to use a lawsuit against her as a vehicle to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in all states.
No justice noted any dissent or released any opinion as the court rejected Davis’ case in a routine order list.
Obergefell was issued on a 5-4 vote, with conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the liberals to establish the same-sex marriage right. With Kennedy’s retirement in 2018 and President Donald Trump’s appointees later shoring up a 6-3 conservative majority, Davis’ lawyers hoped to muster the four justices needed to get the court to take up the issue again. But Davis’ petition, which appeared to many court watchers as a long-shot bid, fell short.
One member of the court, Justice Clarence Thomas, has called for the court to revisit Obergefell.
In 2022, when the Supreme Court ended the federal constitutional right to abortion, Thomas urged his colleagues in a concurring opinion to “reconsider” the same-sex marriage ruling. However, writing at the time for the court’s majority, Justice Samuel Alito insisted that “nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
