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SCOTUS asked to reverse gay marriage ruling

Is Obergefell on the rocks?

Ten years after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationally, Obergefell v. Hodges may be on the rocks.

An astonishing 591,000 same-sex unions have occurred since that landmark decision, but support from Republicans, who control all three branches of the federal government, has fallen from 55% in 2021 to 41% four years later, according to a Gallup poll. Supporters of the case fear that the Supreme Court, which overturned Roe v. Wade three years ago this summer, may now seek to reverse its prior stance on gay marriage.

Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk jailed for declining to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples post-Obergefell, has joined forces with the Liberty Counsel’s Matt Staver to challenge whether the 2015 ruling threatened Davis’s constitutionally-protected religious liberty. Additionally, they contend it was decided on shoddy, legally dubious grounds.

“If ever there was a case of exceptional importance,” Staver wrote in his petition for writ of certiorari, “the first individual in the Republic’s history who was jailed for following her religious convictions regarding the historic definition of marriage, this should be it.”

Lower courts have dismissed Davis’s lawsuit for emotional damages and attorneys’ fees following her brief stint in jail, but she is appealing her case to the high court. Tucked within that case is a charge for the court to reconsider Obergefell, marking one of the first times in over a decade the court has been asked to amend its stance on gay marriage.

In 2015, a few days after Obergefell was decided, David Moore and David Ermold, a gay couple, recorded as the Kentucky clerk refused to provide them with a marriage license. In an interview with GQ Magazine, Moore and Ermold, who had been in a relationship for over 17 years at the time, appeared to suggest they only sought a license to protest Davis. After their video of the encounter went viral, the two men filed lawsuits against her, eventually receiving $50,000 each. When Davis refused to comply with a judge’s order to issue the license, she was jailed for five days.

The Liberty Counsel has long maintained that Davis should have been granted “a religious accommodation from issuing marriage licenses under her name and authority that conflict with her religious beliefs,” predicting that the case “has the potential to go to the U.S. Supreme Court where Kim Davis will argue for religious freedom and also argue that Obergefell should be overturned.”

Staver, who defends his client’s “sincere religious beliefs” in his case, also blasts the original court ruling as “legal fiction.” Although the case was officially filed in July, the Supreme Court has not accepted it yet. Certain legal experts say they doubt the court ever will due to the doctrine of stare decisis (respect for judicial precedent), complications regarding incompatible marriage laws across the various states, and what they see as Davis’s “extremely narrow” case; others counter that SCOTUS “has shown an alarming willingness” to “reverse long-standing precedent” in recent years.

Crucially, Trump’s position on the topic — which could provide direction for the conservative-leaning court — is not entirely clear. While the president has prided himself on being an anti-woke crusader, his views on traditional marriage are notably less pronounced. In 2022, he threw a party at Mar-a-Lago celebrating former President Joe Biden’s Respect for Marriage Act, which codified gay unions, openly declaring, “We are fighting for the gay community, and we are fighting and fighting hard.” Just last year, Trump’s Florida residence hosted a same-sex wedding ceremony, and the GOP dropped its definition of marriage as existing between “one man and one woman” from its party platform.

Nevertheless, at least two right-leaning members of the court — Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — appear eager to reassess Obergefell. In 2020, when the court declined to take up Davis’s case (the court turns down thousands of cases without explanation annually), Thomas and Alito offered a rare statement criticizing the ruling on gay marriage and expressing sympathy for Davis’s case.

“Davis may have been one of the first victims of this Court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last,” they wrote. “Due to Obergefell, those with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage will find it increasingly difficult to participate in society without running afoul of Obergefell and its effect on other antidiscrimination laws.”

The next Supreme Court session kicks off on October 6, 2025, and the court has already released its lineup of cases for October and November. If the case is accepted, it likely won’t be determined until next summer. In the meantime, the nation will have to wait with bated breath for a judicial contest that could reshape the future of religious liberty and LGBTQ activism in America.

This is a developing story. Refresh for updates.

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Created:	2025-08-13 17:09 GMT
Updated:	2025-08-20 07:00 GMT
Published:	2025-08-13 17:00 GMT
Converted:	2025-11-11 12:06 GMT
Change Author:	Jakob Fay
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