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Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Samuel Alito
Samuel Alito said that he doesn't intend to "disturb" marriage equality — but is he trustworthy?
Conservative justice Samuel Alito has suggested that he does not intend to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision granting marriage equality, despite his previous statements otherwise.
Alito recently discussed Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 ruling in which the court determined that laws prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying are unconstitutional, during a speech at a conference in Washington, D.C He said that the 2022 ruling overturning the right to an abortion nationally, Dobbs v. Jackson, was not meant to "disturb" other cases.
“In commenting on Obergefell, I am not suggesting that the decision in that case should be overruled," Alito said via NBC News, adding, “As I said in my opinion for the court in Dobbs, more than once, nothing in Dobbs was meant to disturb [Obergefell]."
Related: Will marriage equality be overturned? Here's how it could happen
Alito was one of the four dissenting votes in Obergefell. While the court has made no official move to reconsider the case, nine states have recently introduced resolutions asking the court to hear it 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.
Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky who was sued by a same-sex couple for refusing to issue them marriage license, has also appealed the verdict against her to the Supreme Court, and included in her filing a petition to overturn Obergefell. The court has also not yet agreed to hear her case.
Alito previously wrote when the court rejected an appeal from Davis in 2020 that marriage equality should be left to the states, suggesting that Obergefell should be reversed.
"In Obergefell ... the Court read a right to same-sex marriage into the Fourteenth Amendment, even though that right is found nowhere in the text," Alito said. "Several Members of the Court noted that the Court's decision would threaten the religious liberty of the many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman. If the States had been allowed to resolve this question through legislation, they could have included accommodations for those who hold these religious beliefs."
Related: Marriage equality will be banned in these 31 states if Obergefell is overturned
Other conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett also recently weighed in on the effort to overturn marriage equality. Thomas said during a recent appearance at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law that he would not follow court precedent “if I find it doesn’t make any sense."
“I don’t think that ... any of these cases that have been decided are the gospel,” Thomas said. “And I do give perspective to the precedent. But ... the precedent should be respectful of our legal tradition, and our country and our laws, and be based on something – not just something somebody dreamt up and others went along with.”
If Obergefell is reversed, marriage equality would be outlawed in 31 states. Marriages between same-sex couples would still be recognized federally under the Respect for Marriage Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, which mandates that the federal government recognizes same-sex and interracial marriages, and that all states recognize those performed in other states.
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