SCOTUS Rejects Same-Sex Marriage Case
A bit of good news.
Via the NYT: Supreme Court Denies Request to Revisit Same-Sex Marriage Decision.
The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a request that it consider overturning its landmark decision to legalize same-sex marriage a decade ago.
The court, without comment, declined the petition, filed by Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who gained national attention in 2015 when she defied a court order and refused to issue same-sex licenses because of her religious beliefs.
[…]
David Ermold and David Moore, a Kentucky couple, sued Ms. Davis after they had been refused a license and prevailed at trial in 2023.Ms. Davis was ordered to pay the couple $360,000 in damages and lawyers’ fees.
She appealed the judgment, claiming First Amendment protection from liability and asserted that the court had wrongly recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage and should reverse its decision in Obergefell.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled against Ms. Davis in March, citing a recent Supreme Court decision that found public officials acting in their official capacity are not protected by the First Amendment.
Given the behavior of the Court, I know that there was some concern the Court might take up the case, although Court watchers seemed to think it unlikely. Still, some good news for the rights of citizens to live their lives as they see fit in this outcome.
This will probably end the talk of the USSC overturning Loving. I always thought that talk was done by chicken littles.
@Bill Jempty:
Loving won’t be overthrown so long as Uncle Thomas sits on the Fixer Court.
Wait, are the Supremes pretending to GAF about precedent? Are we really supposed to believe there weren’t enough justices who’d love to overturn Obergefell? The court analyzed the politics of it, saw that Trump wasn’t pushing it and it’d affect the midterms, and kicked the can down the road.
@Michael Reynolds: Interesting question.
The original opinion was written by Kennedy, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan. Two of those are now off the court, replaced by Kavanaugh and Barrett.
Roberts, Thomas, and Alito are still on the court from the original dissenters. Scalia has passed and been replaced by Gorsuch.
I could easily see Gorsuch flipping to the pro side, especially with precedent now set and with an appreciation of the consequences of overturning a decade in. Actually ditto Roberts. But I could see Kavanaugh and Barrett joining the antis.
@Michael Reynolds:
Impossible to know for sure. I am somewhat surprised there weren’t four who wanted to hear the case. Alito and Thomas for sure, beyond that I am not certain.
@James Joyner: @Steven L. Taylor:
By the way, do we still use the term, ‘grant cert?’ It was the favored shorthand when I was a young DC law firm flunky.
@Michael Reynolds: They do still use that term, yes.
@Steven L. Taylor:
This isn’t an attractive case to use for that purpose. Among other things, plaintiff stated in the initial trial that this wasn’t a case about Obergefell, it was about the generic issue of whether a low-level government official could refuse to follow state law if they believed it sometimes conflicted with their religious beliefs. At the time the original case was filed, the Kentucky county clerk was refusing to issue any marriage licenses because some of the couples were of the same sex. There aren’t four justices interested in granting county clerks generic annulment power. Even Alito and Thomas might not be willing.
One of Davis’ lawyers said,
I expect that’s right, but they want a better case. They’ve always taken the position they won’t do all the work, somebody has to present a colorably decent case. The difficulty of unwinding tariffs may carry some weight with them. The difficulty of unwinding existing legal marriages won’t.
Gorsuch wrote the 2020 Bostock decision (the one where anti-LGBT discrimination was placed within the category of sex discrimination under the 1964 Civil Rights Act). That always made overturning Obergefell less likely than some people believed.
What worries me most now is that this “good” decision (which really just means absolute bare minimum of acceptable) is about to be followed by some bad ones, such as eviscerating most of what’s left of the Voting Rights Act.
Chief Justice Roberts: … {{Roberts checking polls’}} “ummm, my people? We’ve done enough damage in the past year or so, non-Republicans hate us, and the 2026 midterm elections are coming up. We should pass on this case now.”
Justice Thomas: “Wait, what? I have my ‘originalist’ pretext ready to go. We can turn this back to the states just like with Dobbs. Everyone loved that decision!”
Chief Justice Roberts: “Okay then, all in favor of declining to hear this case?” {{7 hands raised}}
Good. Clarence, your RV is ready to go, right?”