Latest news with #Obergefell
The Hill
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis asks Supreme Court to reverse same-sex marriage decision
Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who was briefly jailed in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to revisit its landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide and celebrated its 10th anniversary in June. Davis's attorneys at the Christian nonprofit Liberty Counsel asked the court in a 90-page filing to review a March ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a lower court's finding that Davis violated David Ermold and David Moore's constitutional right to marry when she denied them a marriage license in 2015, shortly after the Supreme Court issued its Obergefell decision. A federal jury awarded the couple $100,000 in damages in 2023, and a federal judge ordered Davis last year to pay Ermold and Moore an additional $260,000 in attorneys' fees. Davis argued in 2015 that granting the couple a marriage license would have violated her religious beliefs as a born-again Christian and 'God's definition of marriage.' She and her legal team have argued throughout a decadelong legal battle that, in denying the license, Davis was protected by her First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion. In March, a three-judge panel for the 6th Circuit ruled that Davis cannot raise a First Amendment defense in the case 'because she is being held liable for state action, which the First Amendment does not protect.' Liberty Counsel is asking the Supreme Court to overturn both the 6th Circuit decision and the high court's ruling in Obergefell. 'Kim Davis' 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,' said Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel's founder and chair. The group's petition argues that the court should revisit and reverse its Obergefell decision 'for the same reasons articulated in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Center,' the case that led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. 'Obergefell was wrong when it was decided and it is wrong today because it was grounded entirely on the legal fiction of substantive due process.' Bill Powell, counsel for Ermold and Moore, told The Hill in an email the Supreme Court is unlikely to take up Davis's case. 'Not a single judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals showed any interest in Davis's rehearing petition, and we are confident the Supreme Court will likewise agree that Davis's arguments do not merit further attention,' he said. The high court declined to intervene in Davis's case in 2020. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, conservatives who dissented from the court's majority opinion in Obergefell, said they agreed with the court's decision not to accept Davis's appeal but used the occasion to renew their objections to its same-sex marriage decision. 'Davis may have been one of the first victims of this court's cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last,' wrote Thomas, joined by Alito. 'Due to Obergefell, those with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage will find it increasingly difficult to participate in society without running afoul of Obergefell and its effect on other anti-discrimination laws.' Davis's appeal to the Supreme Court comes as it faces calls from Republican lawmakers to overturn Obergefell. In June, Southern Baptists voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution endorsing a ban on same-sex marriage and calling for the court to reverse its decision. National support for same-sex marriage remains at record highs, though a May Gallup poll showed Republican support for marriage equality falling to 41 percent, the lowest in a decade. In a separate survey conducted by three polling firms in June, 56 percent of Republican respondents said they support same-sex marriage.
USA Today
6 days ago
- Politics
- USA Today
Could the Supreme Court revisit marriage equality? New appeal offers chance
Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, wants the high court to overturn that decision. WASHINGTON – A former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses in 2015 because of her religious beliefs is hoping the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority wants to scrap the court's 10-year-old decision extending marriage rights to LGBTQ+ couples. Kim Davis asked the court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges in an appeal filed on July 24 about the compensation she was ordered to pay a couple after denying them a marriage license. Mat Staver, head of Liberty Counsel, the conservative legal group representing Davis, said that decision threatens the religious liberty of Americans who believe marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman. "The High Court now has the opportunity to finally overturn this egregious opinion from 2015," Staver said in a statement. More: He was at the center of a Supreme Court case that changed gay marriage. Now, he's worried. Mary Bonauto, a senior director with GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, said Davis' legal team is trying to shoehorn an opportunity to relitigate Obergefell into a narrow legal question of whether the former clerk should have to pay damages. "There's good reason for the Supreme Court to deny review in this case rather than unsettle something so positive for couples, children, families, and the larger society as marriage equality," Bonauto said in an emailed response. Davis attracted international attention when she refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, landing her in jail on a contempt of court charge for five days. When Davis was sued by David Ermold and David Moore, she argued legal protections for public officials prevented the challenge. Lower courts let the suit proceed and the Supreme Court in 2020 declined to intervene. More: Southern Baptists vote to seek repeal of historic same-sex marriage ruling Justice Clarence Thomas wrote at the time that while Davis' case was a "stark reminder" of the consequences of Obergefell, it didn't "cleanly present" questions about that decision. After the district court ruled against Davis, she was ordered to pay $100,000 in damages to the couple and $260,000 for their attorneys fees and expenses. Her appeal to the Supreme Court opens with comments made by the dissenting justices in the 5-4 decision issued 10 years ago. Since then, the court's makeup has changed to a 6-3 conservative supermajority. Opinion: I was the named 'opposition' in Obergefell v. Hodges. I've never been happier to lose. Still, Carl Esbeck, an expert on religious liberty at the University of Missouri School of Law, said there's "not a chance" the court is going to overturn Obergefell. That's in part because Congress passed a law in 2022 guaranteeing federal recognition of same-sex marriage rights, he said. "It would be a useless act to overturn Obergefell," Esbeck said. "The politics have simply moved on from same-sex marriage, even for conservative religious people." Geoffrey R. Stone, who teaches law at the University of Chicago, agreed the court is unlikely to scrap Obergefell despite its willingness in recent years to overturn precedents on abortion and affirmative action. While a majority of the current justices may disagree with Obergefell, the decision is generally approved by the public, he said. "For that reason, and to avoid the appearance of interpreting the Constitution in a manner that conforms to their own personal views," Stone said in an emailed response, "even some of the conservative justices might not vote to overrule Obergefell."
Indian Express
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Ten years after US Supreme Court's ‘Obergefell' judgment legalised same-sex marriage, an erosion of LGBTQIA+ rights
Written by Kanav N Sahgal June 26 marked the 10-year anniversary of Obergefell vs Hodges — the landmark US Supreme Court ruling that legalised same-sex marriage in the country. While some activists celebrated the anniversary, others decried how drastically the legal and political landscape has regressed for LGBTQIA+ people since that historic victory. Backlash against the LGBTQIA+ community, especially transgender individuals, is on the rise across the United States. But more tellingly, the US Supreme Court's jurisprudence in the years since Obergefell has shifted sharply to the right — limiting rather than expanding LGBTQIA+ rights in a range of arenas: Education, public accommodation law and, more recently, healthcare access. During this time, the Court has also routinely upheld religious objections to LGBTQIA+ equality in four separate cases — most recently, just days ago, in the case of Mahmoud vs Taylor, where the Court ruled that parents have the right to opt their children out of public-school instruction involving LGBTQIA+-themed storybooks based on religious free exercise rights. Two previous cases — one in 2018 (Masterpiece Cakeshop vs Colorado Civil Rights Commission) and another in 2023 (303 Creative LLC vs Elenis) — involved business owners who operated public accommodations and approached the Court seeking permission to deny same-sex couples' access to services. In both cases, the Supreme Court sided with the business owners, holding that enforcing anti-discrimination laws in these contexts would violate their First Amendment rights. In another case from 2021, Fulton vs City of Philadelphia, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favour of a Catholic foster care agency that refused to certify same-sex couples as foster parents. This list is not exhaustive — and does not even include the Court's recent rulings that have sharply curtailed legal protections for transgender people. But why this shift? One obvious reason is that the composition of the US Supreme Court has changed drastically over the past decade. During his first term as president, Donald Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Court — Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — giving the nine-member bench a comfortable conservative supermajority. These three joined three other conservative-leaning justices already on the bench, forming a solid conservative bloc of six. This left only three Democratic appointees on the Court, unable to influence outcomes unless at least two conservative justices defected to their side. Also, unlike in previous decades, it has now become increasingly rare to find justices who cross ideological lines or serve as moderating influences. In the past, several justices — though appointed by Republican presidents — maintained a degree of independence in their rulings. Take, for example, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor, both of whom, despite being Republican appointees, did at various times cast decisive swing votes in landmark LGBTQIA+ rights cases. Justice Kennedy famously authored the majority opinion in Obergefell and provided the crucial fifth vote that allowed the decision to take effect. Yet, just a few years later, he ruled against LGBTQIA+ plaintiffs in Masterpiece Cakeshop, authoring the majority opinion there as well. Similarly, Justice O'Connor cast the fifth and deciding vote in Bowers vs Hardwick (1986), a case that upheld laws criminalising sodomy. But in 2003, she joined the majority in Lawrence vs Texas, which overturned Bowers and effectively decriminalised consensual same-sex intimacy nationwide. It would be difficult, if not downright impossible, to imagine or expect the current crop of conservative justices to display that kind of openness to LGBTQIA+ issues today. But a second, less frequently discussed reason for the weakening of jurisprudence on LGBTQIA+ rights in the United States comes from the Obergefell decision itself. While Obergefell legalised same-sex marriage nationwide, it also included a carveout that acknowledged the rights of individuals with 'decent and honourable religious or philosophical' objections to continue holding dissenting views on same-sex marriage. Ironically, this one sentence — arguably obiter dicta, and therefore not necessarily binding precedent — has since been repeatedly invoked by the Supreme Court's conservative majority again and again. In Mahmoud, for instance, the conservative bloc relied on Obergefell to explicitly justify parents' religious objections to LGBTQIA+ themed story books being read to their children. In a similar vein, the conservative bloc's resistance to substantive due process claims in the context of LGBTQIA+ rights has also intensified in recent times, most notably since the reversal of Roe vs Wade (1973) in Dobbs vs Jackson Women's Health Organisation (2022). There, in his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly called for the Court to reconsider Obergefell, suggesting rather unequivocally that if the logic employed in Dobbs were to be applied consistently, then the constitutional foundation for same-sex marriage may also fail to survive renewed judicial scrutiny. Ten years after Obergefell, therefore, same-sex marriage remains a legal right — but the broader legal framework supporting it has been deeply eroded by the US Supreme Court, and there appears to be little hope for reversal in the near future. The writer is a researcher at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and visiting faculty at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru
Atlantic
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
I Left My Church—And Found Christianity
A decade after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Southern Baptist Convention wants to roll it back. In June, the SBC overwhelmingly voted to pass a resolution, 'On Restoring Moral Clarity Through God's Design for Gender, Marriage, and the Family,' which defines marriage as an exclusively heterosexual covenant and calls for the overturning of Obergefell. For many Americans, gay marriage feels like a settled issue. For Southern Baptists and others who share their theology, the question of the legality of gay marriage is still open. In their view, political and theological opposition is the only possible Christian response to gay marriage, and continuing to challenge marriage equality is a moral duty. The Church they have shaped has no room for the alternative path that many gay Christians have found: not leaving our religion, but embracing our sexuality alongside our faith. I grew up in conservative, evangelical churches. For my undergraduate degree, I attended Union University, a Southern Baptist school in Jackson, Tennessee. I graduated in 2013, and in the years leading up to Obergefell I saw how the growing cultural acceptance of same-sex relationships was haunting Southern Baptist leaders, who viewed it as an existential threat. Their idea of Christian faithfulness in America became synonymous with fighting for a narrow, biblically literalist sexual ethic to be the law of the land. The resolution from the Southern Baptist Convention echoes the arguments I heard as a student: Secular laws are meant to reflect God's moral order, and calling a same-sex partnership a marriage is flatly lying. In one of my ethics classes at Union, the professor insisted that Christians should strongly oppose the legalization of gay marriage as a matter of love for our neighbor. We should not let others enter into something we knew would be destructive, no matter how much they might think they wanted it. One of my classmates suggested that people might be born gay. Would this require a more compassionate response? The professor was unfazed. 'I'm sure there is a biological component, and that doesn't change my view. You can have cancer that is not your fault, and some people are born with cancer of the soul.' David A. Graham: New, ominous signs for gay rights keep emerging The threat Southern Baptists perceived was not just to the social order at large. I heard dire warnings that the legalization of gay marriage would become the catalyst for renewed Christian persecution in America. I heard sermons describing a future where our Church would be dismantled because we refused to perform same-sex marriages. Gay marriage was not a matter of individual freedom; the real freedom at stake was our religious liberty. These predictions have not come to fruition in the 10 years since Obergefell, but the fears persist. In 'On Restoring Moral Clarity,' it crops up in references to laws compelling people to 'speak falsehoods about sex and gender' and the right of each person to 'speak the truth without fear or coercion.' Though churches still have the freedom to refuse to perform gay marriages, ordain openly gay people, or serve Communion to those in same-sex relationships, the idea that Christians are legally forced to accept LGBTQ identities remains a powerful rhetorical tool. My alma mater also benefits from religious exemptions to nondiscrimination laws: In 2020, Union University rescinded its admission of a student entering its nursing program after learning that he was gay. As it did then, the current student handbook at Union prohibits 'homosexual activities' and the 'promotion, advocacy, defense, or ongoing practice of a homosexual lifestyle.' Despite national reporting and a flood of stories from gay alumni about the damage these policies caused, the university continues to exclude LGBTQ students. When I was a student at Union, I did not know I was a lesbian. Maybe it is more accurate to say that I could not know. I believed in and yearned for the God the Church had taught me about. I could not reconcile what I had been raised to believe God wanted from me with the truth of my sexuality. When I finally realized I was gay, I was no longer in the Southern Baptist Church. After graduating from Union, I joined a congregation in the Anglican Church of North America, a conservative denomination formed in a split from the Episcopal Church over women's ordination and the inclusion of gay members. My new church's leaders felt no need to lament Obergefell when it passed, but they still taught that same-sex relationships were antithetical to Christianity. When I came out to them in 2018, the choice set before me was either lifelong celibacy or leaving my beloved community behind. According to my Southern Baptist education, I was also choosing whether to leave God behind. The evangelical voices in my life framed my dilemma as a choice between faithfulness to God and weakness—a capitulation to secular logic and a selfish desire for pleasure. In Matthew 16:24, Jesus calls on his disciples to 'deny themselves and take up their cross.' Gay Christians are all too familiar with these words as weapons. Everyone has a cross, we are told, and it just so happens that ours is living without the romantic partnership we are built to flourish within. Pastors and mentors assured me that I was following God's design, so my sacrifice would eventually lead me to 'have life … abundantly,' which Jesus promises in John 10:10, no matter how painful the interim. The final sentence of 'On Restoring Moral Clarity' says that Christians proceed 'trusting that' God's 'ways lead to human flourishing.' No amount of despair, suffering, and death (most literally reflected in increased suicidality among LGBTQ people of faith) experienced by gay Christians has managed to challenge this presupposition. It is a matter of faith that our suffering is godly. We continue to receive counsel to take up our cross in the hope of a distant resurrection. I spent years telling myself that I could love my Church enough to make up for all the love I would never have. I hoped that the emptiness that burned in my chest could be transformed. It was only one rule. Could I really not follow just one rule? But that one rule was not one simple sacrifice. It was the total subjugation of my ability to give and receive love, an all-encompassing demand of fealty to the authority of my Church. The ground shifted under me as I fought to stay in the Church. By the summer of 2020, I was in a deep crisis of faith. I saw gay Christians happily married while retaining their commitment to faith, and I could not in good conscience deny the Holy Spirit I saw at work in these relationships. I realized that the choice was not between God and my desire for a relationship. It was between my church community and my own integrity. My decision to leave was agonizing. I sobbed through conversations where a pastor recited our Church's theology of marriage. I prayed for a way forward. In the end, the only way forward was out. Today I work for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), at a congregation that fully affirms all LGBTQ people. I am effectively estranged from the communities that I grew up in and committed to as an adult. At first, I worried that embracing my sexuality alongside my faith meant choosing a less serious, less disciplined form of Christianity. Instead, I have found that in leaving my Church, I found only deeper love for God. The cross I took up did not turn out to be forgoing romantic partnership for the rest of my life. Instead, it was listening to the voice of the Spirit within me even when it cost me more than I knew I had. I was not surprised to lose friendships and the network of support that I had had in the evangelical Church. What took longer to accept was the unmooring of my identity, the need to find a new center for my spirituality once I let go of the theology that shaped me. To affirm the goodness of my sexuality, I had to find a new home. Stephanie Burt: A strange time to be trans In my Southern Baptist university and the evangelical Churches I grew up attending, I often heard that opposition to gay marriage was a sincerely held religious belief that Christians should be allowed to practice. I never heard this same language extended to Christians who affirmed the goodness of same-sex relationships. I heard only that theological affirmation of LGBTQ identities was a weak attempt to appease secular culture. For many Christians, affirmation of queer identities is an equally sincere religious conviction. The churches that embrace LGBTQ people as beloved members of the community are motivated by Christian love for God and neighbor. We see the beauty of God's design in our real, embodied lives, and we seek human flourishing that is more than an abstract promise of finding meaning in the pain. The gay and trans Christians I know are the most committed people of faith I have ever met. We had every reason to leave, and yet we are still here. We are here because we still believe in Jesus, and we still believe the Spirit works through this beloved, holy, and achingly human Church. Historically, the Church has seen marriage as a vocation, a calling from God to be formed by a particular way of life. When gay Christians seek to commit their life to their partner through marriage in the eyes of God and the law, they are asking for the religious liberty to act on their sincerely held convictions. For 10 years, Obergefell has protected our right to practice our faith as our conscience dictates. May we continue to have the freedom to love as God leads us to for many generations.
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ohio Ballot Board votes to split Ohio Equal Rights Amendment into two
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Petitioners of an Equal Rights Amendment cleared the hurdle to start collecting signatures to be on the November 2026 ballot Wednesday morning, but the clearance came with a catch. 'I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it does feel political,' Representative Terrence Upchurch (D-Cleveland) said. 'I do believe it's political because I think that, looking at what is being proposed, it's pretty simplistic in nature. I think it is one issue. It's cut and dry.' Each time a person or a group wants to get a proposal constitutional amendment on an Ohio ballot, there are several steps to accomplish. One of them is the certification, by the Ohio Ballot Board, that the proposed amendment is only about one issue. On Wednesday morning, the board voted to split the Ohio Equal Rights Amendment into two. 'It seems apparent to me that it would be good to give [voters] those as two separate amendments,' Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R-Ohio) said. 'Is it conceivable that there are voters out there that would support one part of this but not support the other part of this?' Hot pot restaurant with robert servers closes after 1 year 'If that were the standard, then that would be true of every proposal that goes before Ohio voters,' legal counsel for Ohio Equal Rights Corey Colombo said. 'There would aspects [voters] like and don't like. But that doesn't change the fact that this is all under the same umbrella.' What are the, now, two amendments? The first would remove language from the Ohio Constitution that bans same-sex marriage. That language, though still in the state constitution, is not currently applied thanks to Obergefell v. Hodges, a U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage in 2015. Lis Regula, a leader with Ohio Equal Rights, said with the possibility that the case is reconsidered, Ohioans should act fast. 'Right now [same-sex marriage is] entirely dependent on Obergefell, that decision, if it changes, I think there's going to be a lot of people who are surprised that 'oh crap, Cousin Joe and his husband aren't married anymore, what does this mean,'' he said. 'That is a rude awakening that I don't want to see people have to struggle with.' The amendment would delete existing Ohio Constitution language that bans same sex marriage and replace it with a provision that expressly allows it. If passed, it would read: 'The State of Ohio shall issue marriage licenses to individuals the age of eighteen and above and not nearer of kin than second cousins, and the state and its political subdivisions shall recognize and treat equally all marriages regardless of race, sex, or gender identity. Religious organizations and members of clergy shall have the right to refuse to solemnize a marriage.' The second amendment would add a new part to the Ohio Constitution that prohibits discrimination based on 'race, color, creed or religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression regardless of sex assigned at birth, pregnancy status, genetic information, disease status, age, disability, recovery status, familial status, ancestry, national origin, or military and veteran status.' Backers of the amendment argued that both this provision and the same-sex marriage one fall under the same category. 'In this case, the proposal, the petition, all relates to the single general purpose of equal rights of all Ohioans,' Colombo said. But the problem Republicans took with this portion of the amendment is the portion regarding transgender Ohioans. 'What brought us to this point is seeing the number of already existing laws that infringe on people's rights here in Ohio,' Regula said. Here's a quick look-back: In January 2024, Ohio lawmakers based one bill that both bans gender affirming care for minors and bans transgenders athletes from playing on teams that align with their gender identities. In November 2024, Ohio Lawmakers passed a 'bathroom ban.' It requires both public and private K-12 schools and all Ohio universities to prohibit non-gendered bathrooms and will ban transgender students from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity. If passed, this amendment could call some of those laws, passed by the Republican supermajority at the Ohio Statehouse, into question. 'How is it the same purpose to allow biological men in the same locker room as girls, when they're not consenting, how is that the same general purpose of allowing people of the same sex, consensually, to get married?' Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) asked. Colombo said, 'There's nothing in the language that specifically discusses bathrooms,' but Gavarone took issue with the word 'accommodations.' To get on the ballot, petitioners need to gather 415,000 valid signatures for each amendment in order to get one or both on the ballot. Their goal is to put the questions in front of voters in November 2026. 'We want to be able to have time to have deep conversations with people and really talk about 'what do equal rights mean to you as an Ohioan, what does it mean to be protected from infringement on your ability to make a living for yourself, provide for your family and develop in an appropriate way,'' Regula said. With the November 2026 goal in mind, Ohio Equal Rights has until July 2026 to meet the signature requirement. On Wednesday morning, Regula said he is not sure if they will take the Ohio Ballot Board's decision to split the amendment up to court. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 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