Overturning obergefell v hodges
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That action had followed Hensley filing of a lawsuit in state court against the committee’s sanctioning against her. I've never been happier to lose.
Still, Carl Esbeck, an expert on religious liberty at the University of Missouri School of Law, said there’s "not a chance" the court is going to overturn Obergefell.
That’s in part because Congress passed a law in 2022 guaranteeing federal recognition of same-sex marriage rights, he said.
"It would be a useless act to overturn Obergefell," Esbeck said.
Nearly one in five of those married couples is parenting a child under 18.
Since the Obergefell decision, the makeup of the Supreme Court has shifted rightward, now including three appointees of President Donald Trump and a 6-justice conservative supermajority.
Chief Justice John Roberts, among the current members of the court who dissented in Obergefell a decade ago, sharply criticized the ruling at the time as "an act of will, not legal judgment" with "no basis in the Constitution." He also warned then that it "creates serious questions about religious liberty."
Davis invoked Roberts' words in her petition to the high court, hopeful that at least four justices will vote to accept her case and hear arguments next year.
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By Christopher Kane, Washington Blade Courtesy of the NLGBTQ Media Association
A petition filed last month by former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis asks the U.S.
Supreme Court to revisit its landmark Obergefell v. Her petition for writ of certiorari now asks the High Court to overturn a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages along with $260,000 for attorneys fees.
While she is considered one of the only Americans with legal standing to challenge the precedent, Davis’s appeal is considered a long shot by most legal experts, and it comes a few months after a federal appeals court panel decided she could not sue on First Amendment protections because “she is being held liable for state action.”
Legal protections for same-sex marriage are also codified into federal law with the Respect for Marriage Act, passed on a bipartisan basis under the Biden-Harris administration, which presents an additional hurdle for litigants seeking to overturn or narrow Obergefell.
However, the RFMA does not require states to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples if the 2015 ruling was revoked, only that they recognize valid same-sex (and interracial) marriages performed in other states.
“Not a single judge on the U.S.
Court of Appeals showed any interest in Davis’s rehearing petition, and we are confident the Supreme Court will likewise agree that Davis’s arguments do not merit further attention,” William Powell, attorney for the Kentucky couple that sued Davis for damages, told ABC News in a statement.
At the same time, Lambda Legal reports that at least nine states have introduced legislation to block new marriage licenses for LGBTQ people or passed resolutions urging the Supreme Court to reverse Obergefell so far in 2025.
And in June, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to make a top priority of overturning “laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v.
He calls Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in Obergefell "legal fiction."
The petition appears to mark the first time since 2015 that the court has been formally asked to overturn the landmark marriage decision. This could throw the issue back to the states, as they did with the Dobbs case on abortion.
Kim Davis refused same-sex marriage license in 2015.
Now, he's worried.
Mary Bonauto, a senior director with GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, said Davis' legal team is trying to shoehorn an opportunity to relitigate Obergefell into a narrow legal question of whether the former clerk should have to pay damages.
"There’s good reason for the Supreme Court to deny review in this case rather than unsettle something so positive for couples, children, families, and the larger society as marriage equality," Bonauto said in an emailed response.
Davis attracted international attention when she refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, landing her in jail on a contempt of court charge for five days.
When Davis was sued by David Ermold and David Moore, she argued legal protections for public officials prevented the challenge.
The 2022 Respect for Marriage Act requires the federal government and all states to recognize legal marriages of same-sex and interracial couples performed in any state -- even if there is a future change in the law.
Davis first appealed the Supreme Court in 2019 seeking to have the damages suit against her tossed out, but her petition was rejected.
If the case is accepted, it would likely be scheduled for oral argument next spring and decided by the end of June 2026. Now she wants to cancel gay marriage.
WASHINGTON – A former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses in 2015 because of her religious beliefs is hoping the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority wants to scrap the court’s 10-year-old decision extending marriage rights to LGBTQ+ couples.
Kim Davis asked the court to overturn Obergefell v.
"The politics have simply moved on from same-sex marriage, even for conservative religious people."
Geoffrey R. Stone, who teaches law at the University of Chicago, agreed the court is unlikely to scrap Obergefell despite its willingness in recent years to overturn precedents on abortion and affirmative action.
While a majority of the current justices may disagree with Obergefell, the decision is generally approved by the public, he said.
More: From marginal religious groups to mainstream Christians, there's a shift in Supreme Court cases"For that reason, and to avoid the appearance of interpreting the Constitution in a manner that conforms to their own personal views," Stone said in an emailed response, "even some of the conservative justices might not vote to overrule Obergefell."
Hodges.
This is when the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct (SCJC) entered the picture. Hodges, that defy God's design for marriage and family" a top priority.
Support for equal marriage rights softening
While a strong majority of Americans favor equal marriage rights, support appears to have softened in recent years, according to Gallup -- 60% of Americans supported same-sex marriages in 2015, rising to 70% support in 2025, but that level has plateaued since 2020.
Among Republicans, support has notably dipped over the past decade, down from 55% in 2021 to 41% this year, Gallup found.
Davis' petition argues the issue of marriage should be treated the same way the court handled the issue of abortion in its 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade.
Hensley says it is that lingering question that left her with the very real possibility that she could still face disciplinary action from the SCJC in the future. By 2018, Hensley’s ‘straight couple’s only’ policy led to complaints. Then roughly one year later, Hensley began performing weddings again, but for straight couples only.
Hodges in an appeal filed on July 24 about the compensation she was ordered to pay a couple after denying them a marriage license.
Mat Staver, head of Liberty Counsel, the conservative legal group representing Davis, said that decision threatens the religious liberty of Americans who believe marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.
"The High Court now has the opportunity to finally overturn this egregious opinion from 2015," Staver said in a statement.
More: He was at the center of a Supreme Court case that changed gay marriage.Just under five years later, the commission rescinded the order on September 9, 2024.