By Lake DiStefano
Nation & World Editor
The Supreme Court has decided that it will not take on an appeal to overturn its 2015 landmark ruling Obergfell V. Hodges, which codified same-sex marriage into federal law.
According to AP News, the decision was made on Nov. 10, as the court briefly debated whether or not to take the case on Nov. 7. The appeal was thrown out without comment from the justices, and reaffirmed the legal precedent set by the court back in 2015.
The appeal was brought forth by Kim Davis, a former Kentucky court clerk who landed in legal hot-water when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples even after the high court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Davis cited her religious objection to same-sex marriage as justification for her refusal to administer the licenses. A decision with which she was promptly sued for by multiple couples in the county. As a result of the 2015 ruling, a jury ordered her to pay $360,000 in damages and legal fees, according to CNN.
She was also thrown in jail for several days after a federal court found she had violated a court order to issue licenses, according to CNN.
Since then, Davis has been trying to get a higher court to overturn the lower-court order for her to pay $360,000 in damages and attorney’s fees.
This eventually led to the case reaching the Supreme Court, as the damages were requested on legal basis of the 2015 Obergfell V. Hodges precedent.
Mat Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, the legal group that represented Davis in this case, said that as a result of this ruling the former clerk will face “crippling monetary damages based on nothing more than purported hurt feelings,” according to CNN.
Despite the near-immediate dismissal of the appeal, it had received outsized attention partially due to the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, which three years ago overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion that its previous 1973 decision established. The court also notably looks far different than the version of the itself which initially codified same-sex marriage into federal law.
Evidently, the court does not seem too concerned with revisiting other cases in the same way it did with Roe v. Wade.
According to AP News, Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson praised the justices' unwillingness to revisit the case, saying, “The Supreme Court made clear today that refusing to respect the constitutional rights of others does not come without consequences.”
While the swiftness of the rejection is notable within the back-and-forth for LGBTQ+ rights in this administration, the court’s recent taking on of Chiles v. Salazar — an ongoing case challenging a federal ban on conversion therapy — calls into question exactly how the justices feel free speech falls in relation to religious freedom and LGBTQ+ rights.
In the meantime, this marks a major loss for religious-freedom focused groups, such as Liberty Counsel, which according to the Liberty Counsel website, chose to represent Davis with the explicit purpose of overturning Obergefell v. Hodges.
“We are committed to overturning Obergefell. Like the abortion issue in Roe v. Wade, the Obergefell opinion has no basis in the U.S. Constitution. Marriage should have never been federalized,” Staver said.
Conversely, a decision for Chiles v. Salazar is expected by the summer, according to the SCOTUSblog, which will more fully color in this court’s view of religious freedom in relation to LGBTQ+ rights.
