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Rowan County Clerk of Courts Kim Davis waves to a crowd of her supporters at a rally in front of the Carter County Detention Center on September 8, 2015 in Grayson, Kentucky.
The Kentucky clerk who denied same-sex couples marriage licenses is trying to get the Supreme Court to overturn marriage equality.
The former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples almost a decade ago is still appealing her case — this time to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kim Davis was serving as the elected clerk of Rowan County in 2015 when the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling Obergefell v. Hodges federally solidifying marriage equality. Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, saying it would violate her protected religious beliefs, and shut down all marriage license operations in her office to avoid serving them.
David Ermold and David Moore were denied a license three times by Davis. A second couple, James Yates and Will Smith were denied five times. A deputy clerk finally issued their licenses after Davis spent five days in jail for her actions. Both couples sued afterwards, but only Ermold and Moore were awarded damages, each being allotted $50,000 by a federal jury in 2023.
Davis appealed her case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, which ruled unanimously against her in February. Now that the appeals court has refused to re-hear her case, her lawyer — from the Liberty Counsel, a far-right Christian legal organization — has announced that they intend to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, "This case underscores why the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, because that decision threatens the religious liberty of many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman."
While the Supreme Court has made no official move to reconsider marriage equality, nine states have recently introduced resolutions asking the court to hear the case again. None have yet passed, and even if they were to, the resolutions are nonbinding — meaning they carry no legal weight, and the court is not obligated to hear them.
However, some justices have voiced opposition to Obergefell even after the ruling. When the conservative majority created by Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion at the time that the court should also revisit and overrule decisions that prevent state restrictions on contraception, marriage equality, sodomy, and other private consensual sex acts, calling the rulings "demonstrably erroneous."
If the Supreme Court reverses Obergefell v. Hodges, marriages between same-sex couples will still be recognized federally under the Respect for Marriage Act. Signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, the act mandates that the federal government recognizes same-sex and interracial marriages, and that all states recognize those performed in other states.
The act does not require states to allow marriages between same-sex couples. As state bans on these unions were struck down in Obergefell, such bans could be enacted again if Obergefell is overturned.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the couples, has previously celebrated the lower courts' decisions, with senior staff attorney Ria Tabacco saying in a statement that it sends "strong message to other government officials in Kentucky that it is not only unconstitutional to use public office to impose one’s personal religious views on others, but that it also can be a very expensive mistake.”
“Kim Davis was an outlier who has been replaced by Kentucky voters," she said.
