On Nov. 10, in a unanimous decision amongst all nine U.S. Supreme Court judges, the landmark ruling from 2015 of Obergefell v. Hedges which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide under the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution will not be revisited.
The denial comes in the case of Ermold v. Davis in which former Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis tried to appeal to the Supreme Court a decade old case involving her denying marriage licenses towards multiple same-sex couples shortly after the ruling of Obergefell v. Hedges. She refused to give the licenses because of her religious views. Despite multiple court orders and multiple failed appeals, she kept denying licenses until her eventual arrest for contempt of court.
Davis was ordered to pay $100,000 to the couple of David Ermold and David Moore and an additional $260,000 towards the attorneys in the case. However, in an attempt to avoid paying the money, she tried to argue that her religious beliefs were protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution.
As part of Davis’s appeal initially filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, one of the questions considered was, “Whether the First Amendment free exercise clause provides an affirmative defense to tort liability based solely on emotional distress damages with no actual damages in the same manner as the free speech clause under Snyder v. Phelps.” When the case was petitioned for the Supreme Court, no comments were made by any of the nine judges besides the petition to revisit the landmark ruling being denied.
There were fears that the court may have revisited the case due to the court being a 6-3 conservative majority compared to the 5-4 conservative majority back in 2015. In the case that overturned Roe v. Wade (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization), Justice Clarence Thomas had also expressed interest in having the court eventually look into Obergefell v. Hedges. Since the court did not take up Kim Davis’s appeal, the constitutional right to same-sex marriage remains intact.
Reactions to the denial were met with feelings of celebration from many. In a statement, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said, “Today, love won again. When public officials take an oath to serve their communities, that promise extends to everyone — including LGBTQ+ people. The Supreme Court made clear today that refusing to respect the constitutional rights of others does not come without consequences.”
Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings put out a similar statement and he said, “Today, the Supreme Court affirmed what we all know: marriage equality is the law of the land. This is a victory not only for the LGBTQ+ community, but for everyone who believes in our Constitution and the rule of law. The Court’s decision reaffirms a simple fact: equal protection of the law applies to all, not just some.”
Anne Lee, a sophomore forensic science major and treasurer for University of New Haven PRIDE said, “I think it really just shows how especially after the ruling that people realized that gay people getting married didn’t end the world, people became more accepting of it because it really just makes them happy and also just makes taxes and everything that a family is supposed to do together a bit easier.” “I think she (Kim Davis) totally deserved to have hundreds of thousands of dollars to have to pay to the couple who she refused to marry and the other couples,” said Lee.
