The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to reignite the national debate over same-sex marriage, as justices meet privately Friday to consider whether to hear an appeal from former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis—a case that could thrust the Court back into the center of the culture war nearly a decade after marriage equality was established.
Davis was briefly jailed in 2015 for refusing, on religious grounds, to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She now asks the high court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Her petition also seeks to reverse a lower-court order that requires her to pay over $360,000 in damages and legal fees to a couple she denied a license.
“The mistake must be corrected,” wrote Davis’s attorney, Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel, in the petition. Staver called Obergefell “egregiously wrong from the start” and argued the First Amendment should shield Davis from liability for following her religious convictions about marriage.
The Court’s decision on whether to take up the Davis case could have sweeping implications for national marriage rights. While most legal experts predict her petition will be denied, LGBTQ advocates and political leaders remain concerned, citing the Court’s rightward shift and rising challenges to LGBTQ rights.
“Without this Court’s review, the First Amendment’s protections for public officials with sincerely held religious beliefs will continue to vary by jurisdiction,” Staver warned in a letter to the justices Wednesday. However, lawyers for the plaintiffs, David Ermold and David Moore, argued that Davis’s conduct “went beyond anything she arguably had a right to do.” They wrote her defense “would fail even if such defenses are available to government officials engaged in state action.”
Davis’s case returns to the Court amid renewed anxiety about major civil-rights precedents. Her petition comes three years after the justices overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. Justice Clarence Thomas then urged reconsideration of Obergefell. That concurrence, along with several lower-court rulings favoring religious liberty claims, has emboldened social conservatives to test the limits of LGBTQ protections.
Concerns have grown under the Trump administration, which has introduced new policies targeting LGBTQ health, education, and housing programs. Hillary Clinton warned earlier this year that the Supreme Court “will do to gay marriage what it did to abortion.” She predicted “fewer than half the states would recognize same-sex unions if the Court revoked the nationwide right.”
Advocates for marriage equality still caution against panic. Mary Bonauto, the civil-rights attorney who represented James Obergefell in the 2015 case, said she believes marriage rights remain secure. “I know everything feels unstable,” she said, “but you have a precedent here which affects our whole society. This is something that people need to be able to count on.” Bonauto noted that nearly 823,000 married same-sex couples now live in the United States and are raising almost 300,000 children, according to research from the Williams Institute at UCLA Law.
Former Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the Obergefell opinion, echoed that view in October, calling it “a powerful argument against overruling” because of “the tremendous reliance” families have placed on it.
Recent statements from conservative justices suggest the Court may not want to revisit the issue. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in her memoir and later interviews, described the “rights to marry, engage in sexual intimacy, use birth control, and raise children” as fundamental. When asked about same-sex marriage, she pointed to “very concrete reliance interests” that courts must consider. Justice Samuel Alito, a critic of the 2015 ruling, said last month, “I am not suggesting that the decision in that case should be overruled.”
Even so, the political landscape has changed since Obergefell. According to Lambda Legal, at least nine states in 2025 have proposed or passed measures challenging LGBTQ marriage recognition. Texas courts recently adopted rules that allow judges to refuse officiating same-sex weddings for religious reasons.
Legal scholars note that, even if the Court overturned Obergefell one day, the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act would require all states and the federal government to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages performed anywhere in the United States. The law passed with bipartisan support. Strong public approval for marriage equality may also insulate existing unions from disruption.
The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on Davis signals that legal battles over marriage equality are unresolved. Regardless of the outcome, Friday’s conference underscores the continued vulnerability of marriage rights and the potential for profound national consequences.
