The Supreme Court has declined to revisit a landmark decision in 2015 that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, rejecting an appeal brought by a former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.
The former county clerk, Kim Davis, faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees to a couple denied a marriage license.
The high court did not provide an explanation for denying the appeal.
Breaking News: The Supreme Court denied a request to consider overturning its landmark decision to legalize same-sex marriage a decade ago. https://t.co/wVdTDw8Xze
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 10, 2025
More from the Associated Press:
Her lawyers repeatedly invoked the words of Justice Clarence Thomas, who alone among the nine justices has called for erasing the same-sex marriage ruling.
ADVERTISEMENTThomas was among four dissenting justices in 2015. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito are the other dissenters who are on the court today.
Roberts has been silent on the subject since he wrote a dissenting opinion in the case. Alito has continued to criticize the decision, but he said recently he was not advocating that it be overturned.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was not on the court in 2015, has said that there are times when the court should correct mistakes and overturn decisions, as it did in the 2022 case that ended a constitutional right to abortion.
According to Fox News, Davis’s lawyers argued “for a course correction” on the landmark ruling.
Davis was briefly jailed and held in contempt by a federal judge after denying a marriage license to a same-sex couple in 2015 due to her religious beliefs, the outlet noted.
Supreme Court rejects Kim Davis bid to overturn ruling legalizing same-sex marriage https://t.co/2XKj50lnpL pic.twitter.com/lyK2oJVFmQ
— New York Post (@nypost) November 10, 2025
Fox News shared:
She was also ordered by the court to pay $100,000 in damages to the couple, and to cover their legal fees.
“If ever a case deserved review,” Davis’s lawyers said in their appeal, “the first individual who was thrown in jail post-Obergefell for seeking accommodation for her religious beliefs should be it.”
Though her appeal was considered a long shot, it had prompted fresh speculation about whether the court’s conservative majority might agree to review the seminal case, especially in light of the court’s 2022 decision to overturn abortion protections in Roe v. Wade.
