Kim Davis Petitions Supreme Court to Overturn Same-Sex Marriage Ruling
Former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis — once jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — is again asking the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its 2015 landmark ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
In a 90-page petition filed last month, Davis urged the Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, calling it a “legal fiction” and arguing that it violates the religious liberty of Americans who hold traditional beliefs about marriage.
Davis, 59, made national headlines in 2015 when she refused to issue a marriage license to David Ermold and David Moore, a gay couple in Rowan County, Kentucky, shortly after Obergefell was decided. Her refusal led to a five-day jail sentence, and in 2022 a federal jury found she had violated the couple’s constitutional right to marry. She was ordered to pay $100,000 in emotional damages, plus $260,000 in attorneys’ fees.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the conservative legal group Liberty Counsel, which represents Davis, said in a statement that the case shows “why the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn the wrongly decided Obergefell v. Hodges opinion.” He argued that the First Amendment should protect public officials from being forced to choose between “faith and livelihood.”
“If ever a case deserved review,” the petition states, “the first individual who was thrown in jail post-Obergefell for seeking accommodation for her religious beliefs should be it.” The filing claims Davis’s actions were protected by her First Amendment rights and that the damages awarded to the couple were based solely on “purported emotional distress.”
The petition also directly asks the Court to reconsider Obergefell and the “legal fiction of substantive due process” on which it was based.
William Powell, attorney for Ermold and Moore, dismissed Davis’s arguments, expressing confidence the Court will not take up the case. “Marriage equality is settled law,” Powell said, adding that the lower courts were correct in rejecting Davis’s legal claims.
This is not Davis’s first appeal to the nation’s highest court. The Supreme Court declined to hear her case in 2020, leaving the Obergefell ruling intact.
