The decade after the Supreme Court’s orientation decision in 2015 expands marital rights to the same sex at the nationwide level, the judges will consider this autumn to express them explicitly for rolling the decision.
Challenge Kim Davis
Kim Davis, a former Kentucky County official imprisoned in 2015 for refusing to issue marital licenses for a homosexual couple for religious reasons, refers to a $ 100,000 judgment for emotional damage and $ 260,000 in legal representation fees. Her petition claims that the clause about the free exercise of the first addition should protect her from personal responsibility.
In principle, Davis claims that the decision of the ObergEfell vs Hodges court was “seriously bad”.
“The mistake must be corrected,” wrote Davis’s lawyer Mathew Staver. He described the majority opinion of justice Anthony Kennedy in ObergEfell as “legal fiction” and called the case of “exceptional meaning” because Davis was “the first individual in the history of the republic to be imprisoned for complying with her religious beliefs on the historical definition of marriage”.
Legal obstacles and decision of the lower court
Lower courts rejected Davis’s demands. At the beginning of this year, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that “it cannot increase the first amendment as a defense because it is responsible for the state action that the first amendment does not protect.”
Davis, as Rowan County Clerk, was at that time responsible for issuing marital licenses under state law.
Restored conservative pressure
Davis’s appeal coincides with the revival between conservative groups to reverse the equality of marriage and allow states to determine their own policies. In the decision of ObergEfella in 2015, 35 countries still banned the same sex marriage either legally or constitutionally. In 2025 alone, nine states proposed legislation or adopted a resolution calling for the Supreme Court to set aside this decision.
The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant names in the US, voted in June to prefer the overturning of “laws and court decisions, including Oberegefell, which resisted the proposal of marriage and family”.
Comparison with the abortion decision
Davis’s petition attracts parallels with ROE vs Wade from 2022 of the Supreme Court, emphasizing the concurrence of Judge Clarence Thomas, who urged the re -transport of Obegefell along with other factual processes.
Thomas wrote: “The court should re -evaluate the previous precedents of all this court, including Griswold, Lawrence and Oberegefella.”
Awaiting decision of the Supreme Court
The judges are expected to consider Davis’s petition during a private conference this autumn to decide whether to add a case to their docket. If oral arguments were adopted, the next spring could take place with a decision until June 2026. The court may also refuse, let the lower court decisions and avoid the direct call of Oberegefell.
Legal experts emphasize that even if they turn over, the current marriage of the same sex would remain valid due to the 2022 marriage Act, which requires all states and the federal government to recognize legal marriage regardless of future decisions.
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