Supreme Court rejects challenge to key gay marriage ruling

The decision suggests the court's conservative majority isn't keen to reexamine one of its most important recent rulings.

On Monday, the Supreme Court turned down a request to look at a challenge to its groundbreaking 2015 decision that recognized same-sex marriage as a constitutional right.

The justices made this choice without explanation hinting that even the court's conservative majority doesn't want to reconsider the Obergefell v. Hodges case, which stands as one of the court's most notable rulings in recent times. Last month marked ten years since this landmark decision.

Legal experts said for months the current high court was unlikely to reconsider the Obergefell ruling. Even the small chance had made many same-sex couples quite worried.

The court has shifted a lot to the right since the marriage case was decided. Three of the five justices who voted for same-sex marriage rights are no longer on the court. These include Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. More conservative justices have replaced two of them. The court's rules say four justices must vote to take a case for it to be looked at.

Since 2022 when the court overturned its Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed the right to abortion gay rights supporters have cautioned that same-sex marriage might be the next precedent to be reversed. Legal experts though, have pointed out that the two precedents are different in key ways. One major difference is the presence of over 800,000 same-sex couples who are now married in the United States, as shown by research from the Williams Institute at UCLA law school.

The justices were unlikely to take another look at same-sex marriage, given the legal context of the current case. A county clerk in Kentucky, Kim Davis, asked to reconsider the ruling. She stopped giving out marriage licenses after the Supreme Court's decision. David Moore and David Ermold were among the couples she denied licenses to. Davis told them she was acting "under God's authority."

Moore and Ermold sued Davis saying she violated their right to marry under the Constitution. A federal court in Kentucky sided with the couple, and in 2023, a jury awarded them $50,000 each in damages.

Davis filed an appeal arguing that giving the couple a marriage license would have gone against her religious freedom. However, an appeals court ruled in opposition to her. The court decided that Davis was working as a representative of the state so the First Amendment didn't protect her actions.

Following this, Davis requested the Supreme Court to consider her case.

Notre Dame Law School Professor Richard W. Garnett stated that even if people wanted to take another look at same-sex marriage, this case wouldn't have been the right one for the justices. Legal experts pointed out that to address the marriage issue, the justices would first need to decide that Davis, a government worker had a constitutional right to disregard a law she didn't agree with - a stance the court wouldn't take.