(RNS) — A conservative Christian legal group asked the United States Supreme Court to review a decade-old case involving a former Kentucky county clerk who cited her faith when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — a long-shot effort activists hope will result in justices ending nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage.
Liberty Counsel, a legal nonprofit that also describes itself as a Christian ministry, has long been involved in the case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who in 2015 gained international attention after she wouldn’t issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide that same year.
Davis’ refusal — which she said was rooted in her evangelical Christian faith — led to a series of legal battles she lost, resulting in a brief prison sentence as well as being ordered to pay $100,000 in damages as well as additional legal fees.
The nonprofit filed a petition with the court on Thursday (July 24), requesting an appeal to Davis’ case and asking the court to overturn Obergefell.
“If ever a case deserved review, the first individual who was thrown in jail post-Obergefell for seeking accommodation for her religious beliefs should be it,” reads the petition.
Legal analysts have cast doubt on the likelihood of the court reviewing Davis’ case, noting justices already declined to take up an earlier version of her case in 2020.
But in an interview with Religion News Service last month, Liberty Counsel founder Mathew Staver said multiple justices have voiced frustration with the Obergefell decision over the years. When the court passed over Davis’ case in 2020, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a statement joined by Justice Samuel Alito that blasted the same-sex marriage ruling, saying, “Davis may have been one of the first victims of this court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision.”
“We think that it’s not a matter of if, but just a matter of when, the Supreme Court will overrule Obergefell,” Staver said.
The court has grown more conservative since the 2020 ruling, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett — who has voiced criticism of Obergefell in the past — filling the slot on the bench left open after the death of liberal jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And Thomas explicitly called for Obergefell to be reconsidered in his concurring opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
Staver argued the Dobbs decision left Obergefell in a “weak” position, and he noted that a case only needs support from four justices to be reviewed.
“With all of these things — the overruling of Roe, the composition of the court the way it is now … I have a good feeling about the possibility that the court would take this case,” he said.
Staver also suggested justices may be more willing to take up the case given the passage of the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act, which, among other things, requires states to recognize same-sex marriages if they were performed in places where it is legal. The result, Staver argued, would reduce the nationwide impact if the court once again made same-sex marriage a state-level decision.
“It has taken one of the policy reasons for not overruling Obergefell off the table,” he said.
Even so, LGBTQ+ rights activists have long insisted that, even with the Respect for Marriage Act, rights would be lost if Obergefell were overturned. And their supporters include a broad swath of religious Americans: A 2024 Public Religion Research Institute report found majorities of white mainline Protestants, white Catholics, Hispanic Catholics, Jews and Buddhists all support keeping same-sex marriage legal, and many denominations now perform same-sex marriages. In the past, clergy have even filed suit to help legalize same-sex marriage at the state level.
But Staver said support for his cause is growing — or at least becoming more organized. He pointed to state resolutions passed by lawmakers in Idaho and elsewhere asking the court to reconsider Obergefell, as well as a resolution passed by the Southern Baptist Convention last month that called for “the overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God’s design for marriage and family.”