Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who made global headlines in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples, has petitioned the US Supreme Court to overturn the legal right to marriage equality.
On Thursday, 24 July, Davis filed a request asking the court to reverse the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which legalised same-sex marriage across the United States. That 2015 decision has enabled more than 800,000 LGBTQ+ couples to marry in the decade since it passed.
Davis’s petition also appeals a ruling that requires her to pay compensation to a couple she denied a marriage licence, claiming her refusal was based on religious beliefs.
Religious Freedom vs. Equal Rights
Davis is being represented by Mat Staver, founder of the Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal organisation that frequently litigates anti-LGBTQ+ cases.
In a statement, Staver claimed:
“Obergefell v. Hodges punishes individuals for their beliefs about marriage. The High Court now has the opportunity to finally overturn this egregious opinion from 2015.”
The filing has reignited fears among LGBTQ+ advocacy groups about potential threats to hard-won rights in a shifting judicial landscape.
Legal Experts Push Back
Mary Bonauto, senior director of civil rights at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, told USA Today that the court should decline to hear the case:
“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.”
Davis’s History of Defiance
In 2015, Davis made headlines when she refused to issue marriage licences following the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision. Despite being a public servant, she claimed it was against her born-again Christian beliefs to approve marriages between same-sex couples.
Her refusal led to a brief stint in jail, and she was later taken to court by David Ermold and David Moore, one of the couples she denied. Davis ultimately lost her re-election bid in 2018.
