Could the Supreme Court overturn same-sex marriage? This case hopes to roll back the ruling that made it legal.
The Supreme Court is being asked to hear a case that seeks to undo the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which allowed same-sex couples to get married.
This challenge of Obergefell, the first since 2015, comes from Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed in 2015 after being held in contempt for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis, who refused to file the marriage licenses due to her religious beliefs, is appealing a damages verdict against her: a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 for attorneys' fees. Now she is taking her case to the Supreme Court on the grounds that Obergefell was wrongly decided and infringes on her First Amendment rights.
This is not the first time Davis has attempted to overturn the damages against her. In 2019, she petitioned the Supreme Court to dismiss the lawsuit, but the court declined to hear her case. More recently, in 2025, a panel of judges from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals also rejected her claims.
Davis's challenge is concerning to LGBTQ+ advocates, as overturning Obergefell could undo the legal right to gay marriage. That 2015 ruling stated that same-sex couples must be allowed to marry and that all states must recognize those marriages. At the time, Davis's court battle was a direct challenge to Obergefell — but the ruling held.
But now Liberty Counsel, the conservative group representing Davis, is asking the Supreme Court to overturn both the Sixth Circuit decision and the Supreme Court's initial decision in Obergefell.
Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel's founder and chair, stated that Davis's case 'underscores why the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn the wrongly decided Obergefell v. Hodges opinion, because it threatens the religious liberty of Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.'
Could gay marriage really be overturned? What would that mean?
The new makeup of the Supreme Court could favor Davis. Since 2015, the Supreme Court has become more conservative, with three justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — appointed by President Trump during his first term. While this does not necessarily mean the conservative majority would rule in Davis's favor, should the court choose to take her case, the latest request sounded alarm bells for many LGBTQ+ advocates.
And there is recent precedent for overturning previously decided court cases. For example, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending federal protection for abortion rights after nearly 50 years. In his concurring opinion of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which overturned Roe, Justice Clarence Thomas stated that the court should reconsider Obergefell and other cases related to rights based on the Constitution's due process clause.
Should Obergefell be overturned, 32 states have laws on the book that would ban gay marriage — though, thanks to a 2022 federal law, they would still have to recognize unions that were already legally performed. Then-President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which overturned the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and ensured federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages. However, the law does not force states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
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