The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
According to The Associated Press, without comment, the justices turned away Davis’ request to overturn a lower-court order requiring her to pay $360,000 in damages and attorney’s fees to a couple she denied a marriage license.
Davis’ legal team had urged the Court to revisit Obergefell, citing Justice Clarence Thomas’ past criticism of the decision. Thomas, along with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, dissented in the 2015 case. While Roberts has remained silent since his dissent, Alito has continued to question the ruling but said recently he was not calling for its reversal.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the Court after Obergefell, has said some precedents should be overturned if wrongfully decided, as in the 2022 abortion case, but suggested same-sex marriage may stand apart because “people have relied on the decision when they married and had children.”
Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson praised Monday’s decision, saying, “The Supreme Court made clear today that refusing to respect the constitutional rights of others does not come without consequences.”
Davis, who served as Rowan County clerk in eastern Kentucky, became a national figure in 2015 when she defied federal court orders to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, citing her religious beliefs. She was briefly jailed for contempt of court before her deputies issued the licenses without her name.
The Kentucky legislature later removed clerks’ names from marriage licenses statewide, but Davis’ legal battle continued. She lost her reelection bid in 2018.
