Supreme Court rejects call to overturn its decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a call to overturn the landmark decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
The justices followed the high court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. He rejected an appeal by former Kentucky court clerk Kim Davis, who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples following her ruling in the Hodges case.
Davis was trying to get the court to overturn a lower court order ordering him to pay $360,000 in damages and attorney fees to a couple whose marriage license was denied.
His lawyers repeatedly invoked the words of Justice Clarence Thomas, the only one of the nine justices to call for expunging the same-sex marriage decision.
Thomas was among four justices who dissented in 2015. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito are the other dissenters on the court today.
Roberts has remained silent on the issue since writing a dissenting opinion in the case. Alito continued to criticize the decision but recently said he was not advocating reversing it.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was not on the court in 2015, said there are times when the court must correct mistakes and overturn decisions, such as in the 2022 case that ended the constitutional right to abortion.
But Barrett recently suggested that same-sex marriage may be in a different category than abortion because people rely on that decision when getting married and having children.
Davis drew national attention to Eastern Kentucky’s Rowan County when he turned away same-sex couples, saying his faith prevented him from complying with a high court order. He defied court orders until a federal judge jailed him for contempt of court in September 2015.
He was released after his staff issued licenses in his name and removed his name from the form. The Kentucky legislature later passed a law removing the names of all county clerks from state marriage licenses.
Davis lost his re-election bid in 2018.
