Kim Davis. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to consider whether to hear Kim Davis’s latest challenge to same-sex marriage — a case that, if accepted, could have major implications for LGBTQ rights in the United States.
Kim Davis, the former county clerk for Rowan County, Ky., made national headlines in 2015 when she defied federal court orders by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — and later, to any couples at all. Davis, a Pentecostal Christian, said that signing same-sex marriage licenses would violate her religious beliefs, claiming protection under the First Amendment. When questioned at the time, Davis told reporters she was acting “under God’s authority” and suggested couples could obtain licenses in other counties.
Her refusal came just weeks after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed same-sex couples the constitutional right to marry under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. One of the couples who sought a license from Davis, April Miller and Karen Roberts, filed a federal lawsuit — Miller v. Davis — challenging her actions. Around the same time, another couple, David Moore and David Ermold, also sued after Davis again refused to issue them a license despite a court order directing her to do so.
In Kentucky, marriage licenses bore the county clerk’s name and title — something Davis argued forced her to personally endorse a practice she found morally objectionable. It wasn’t until the state legislature changed the law in 2016, removing clerks’ names from marriage licenses, that Davis and her deputies resumed issuing them.
In 2023, a federal jury awarded Moore and Ermold $50,000 each in damages for Davis’s repeated refusals. Davis appealed the decision, but the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the verdict earlier this year. The court ruled that Davis’s actions were not protected by the First Amendment because she was acting in her official capacity as a government official, not as a private citizen.
“The Bill of Rights would serve little purpose if it could be freely ignored whenever an official’s conscience so dictates,” the court wrote, emphasizing that personal religious opposition cannot be translated into public policy.
Davis has now asked the Supreme Court to take up her case. Her petition, filed in August, argues that Obergefell “has no basis in the Constitution” and should be reconsidered. The justices are scheduled to review her petition in a private conference on Nov. 7, where they will decide whether to grant the case a full hearing.
Whether the court will take the case depends on whether at least four justices vote to hear it. Even if there are four votes to grant review, legal observers note that the justices would likely avoid taking up the case unless they are confident there is a fifth vote to overturn Obergefell.
Mathew Staver, Davis’s attorney, told Newsweek that Obergefell “has no basis in the Constitution” and could be overturned “without affecting any other cases.”
Legal experts, however, see such an outcome as unlikely. According to SCOTUSblog, while the case raises important questions about religious liberty and government authority, it centers on Davis’s personal liability rather than a direct challenge to the constitutionality of same-sex marriage itself.
Still, the case has reignited debate over the balance between religious freedom and LGBTQ rights — and whether the Supreme Court’s conservative majority might be open to revisiting one of its most significant civil rights decisions of the 21st century.
The National LGBT Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: NationalLGBTMediaAssociation.com.
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