Supreme Court rejects Kentucky clerk’s gay marriage challenge

The nation’s highest court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to its 2015 landmark decision to legalize same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges. The Supreme Court did not give reasons for its refusal to hear the case. The appeal came from Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who in 2015 refused to issue a marriage license to a homosexual couple after the Obergefell ruling.

Davis spent six days in jail and was eventually ordered to pay $100,000, which a jury awarded the couple for emotional damages. She filed a petition to the Supreme Court in July. In the petition, Davis asked the court to overturn the ruling against her, refund $260,000 of attorney fees she had incurred, and overturn the Obergefell ruling. Davis is one of the few people with a legal basis to challenge the ruling, as the first person thrown in jail for refusing to comply with it.

What did Davis argue in the petition? Since she was sued as an individual, not a government employee, she argued that the First Amendment should protect her religious obligation not to issue the license. The Obergefell decision threatened her religious liberty and created a right not found in the Constitution, she argued—citing dissenting opinions from Justices Clarence Thomas and John Roberts. 

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report on the 2024 lower court’s ruling against Davis.