The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who became a symbol of religious resistance to same-sex marriage a decade ago, leaving her liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and decisively rejecting a long-shot attempt to overturn marriage equality in America. The court offered no explanation for its decision, and no justices noted any dissent.
Davis, who served as clerk of Rowan County in rural northeastern Kentucky, made international headlines in 2015 when she refused to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples following the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Obergefell v Hodges. Citing her conservative Christian faith, she denied licences to several couples, including David Moore and David Ermold, who subsequently sued her for violating their constitutional rights.
The defiance led to one of the most dramatic confrontations of the post-Obergefell era. After a federal judge ordered Davis to issue licences, she continued to refuse and was jailed for six days for contempt of court. Videos of Moore and Ermold pleading with Davis for their marriage licence went viral, showing the couple's frustration as Davis repeatedly told them 'under God's authority' she could not comply. When she was released from jail, then-Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee greeted her outside with survivor's 'Eye of the Tiger' playing in the background.
A Legal Battle Rooted in Defiance
A jury in 2023 awarded Moore and Ermold $100,000 in emotional damages, plus an additional $260,000 in legal fees. Davis's appeal to the Supreme Court sought not only to overturn that verdict by claiming First Amendment religious protections should shield her from liability, but also asked the justices to reconsider Obergefell itself, arguing the 2015 ruling 'had no basis in the Constitution'.
The appeal sparked considerable anxiety amongst LGBTQ advocates, particularly given that the court's 6-3 conservative majority overturned Roe v Wade three years ago, ending the constitutional right to abortion. Three current justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, were in dissent when Obergefell was decided. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored the soaring opinion declaring that 'no union is more profound than marriage', retired in 2018 and was replaced by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon in the Obergefell majority, died in 2020 and was succeeded by Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
However, several conservative justices had signalled in recent weeks there was little appetite to revisit the precedent. Barrett told the New York Times last month there are 'very concrete reliance interests' at stake with same-sex marriage, whilst Alito, despite criticising the decision, stressed it was 'a precedent of the court that is entitled to the respect afforded by the doctrine of stare decisis'.
Fears of a Return to Culture War Battles
The decision leaves intact a ruling that has transformed American life. Nearly 600,000 same-sex couples have married since Obergefell was decided in June 2015, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. The announcement prompted massive celebrations, with the White House lit in rainbow colours that evening as couples rushed to courthouses to wed.
Yet the court's refusal to hear Davis's case sets no precedent. If another appeal arrives threatening Obergefell, the justices will review it from scratch. And whilst marriage equality survived this challenge, the court has in recent months handed down major decisions restricting transgender rights, including allowing states to ban puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans youth, permitting the Trump administration to bar transgender Americans from military service, and requiring US passports to include sex markers consistent with a person's sex at birth.
