Supreme Court has been formally asked to overturn same-sex marriage ruling

A decade after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, the justices will soon face their first direct request to overturn that ruling.

Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who spent six days in jail in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to a same-sex couple on religious grounds, is appealing a jury’s decision ordering her to pay $100,000 in emotional damages and $260,000 in attorneys’ fees.

In a petition to the Supreme Court last month, Davis contends that the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom shields her from personal liability. She also argues that Obergefell v. Hodges—the 2015 decision granting same-sex couples the right to marry under the 14th Amendment—was “egregiously wrong” and should be overturned.

“The mistake must be corrected,” her attorney, Mathew Staver, wrote in the filing, describing Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell as “legal fiction.” The petition marks the first formal challenge since 2015 aimed at reversing the landmark ruling, and Davis is seen as one of the few individuals with legal standing to do so.

Staver called the case one “of exceptional importance,” noting Davis was the first person in U.S. history jailed for following her religious convictions about the traditional definition of marriage.

Lower courts have rejected Davis’ arguments. Earlier this year, a federal appeals panel ruled she could not use the First Amendment as a defense because she was acting as a state official, a role the amendment does not protect from liability. Under Kentucky law in 2015, the Rowan County Clerk—the position Davis held—was solely responsible for issuing marriage licenses on behalf of the state.

Attorneys for David Ermold and David Moore, the Kentucky couple who sued Davis, dismissed her latest appeal. “Not a single judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals showed any interest in Davis’s rehearing petition, and we are confident the Supreme Court will likewise agree that Davis’s arguments do not merit further attention,” their lawyer William Powell said.

Davis’ bid comes amid a broader push by some conservatives to roll back same-sex marriage rights and return the issue to the states. When Obergefell was decided, 35 states had laws or constitutional provisions banning same-sex marriage, while only eight states explicitly allowed it.

So far in 2025, at least nine states have either advanced measures to block new marriage licenses for LGBTQ couples or passed resolutions urging the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell, according to Lambda Legal.