Ten years after marriage equality became legal nationwide, the Supreme Court could be pushed to revisit the ruling, in what would be a historic reversal of a historic milestone.
Kim Davis, former clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, is the woman leading the charge against LGBTQ+ couples in the U.S. Her resentment appears to remain strong: back in 2015, she was jailed for six days for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, citing religious beliefs. Arrested for contempt of court, Davis became a media figure for those advocating for “religious freedom” in the United States.
At the time, the openly homophobic Davis was also ordered to pay $100,000 in emotional damages and $260,000 in legal fees for refusing to fulfill her duties as a public official. Her legal team is now seeking to have those financial penalties overturned, arguing that under the First Amendment she bears no personal liability in the case.
But Davis isn’t stopping there. Beyond attempting to reverse her own conviction, she wants to go further — calling on the nation’s highest court to review the 14th Amendment, which was the basis for the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodgesthat recognized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Her attorney, Mathew Staver, has stated that the decision to legalize marriage between same-sex couples was “notoriously wrong” and that the law should be corrected “for the good of the American people.”
If Davis’s petition moves forward, it would mark the first time the U.S. Supreme Court has reconsidered — and potentially sought to roll back — a law granting equal marriage rights to LGBTQ+ couples, a right achieved through decades of activism. The concern stems from the fact that Donald Trump’s current administration has already pushed other regressive measures curbing rights and freedoms for LGBTQ+ people, such as refusing to recognize the gender identity of transgender individuals and allowing parents to opt their children out of classes covering sexual and gender diversity.
Currently, there are 823,000 same-sex marriages in the United States, all enjoying the legal rights and protections afforded to married couples. Of these, 591,000 unions were recognized after the landmark 2015 ruling, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
