A Christian petitioner has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a case that could potentially overturn its disastrous 2015 ruling on so-called “gay marriage.”
Throughout the past few days, numerous outlets have published articles on a petition recently filed with the high court by former Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk Kim Davis. According to Liberty Counsel — a Christian organization representing Davis — the former clerk was previously “jailed, sued, and held personally liable post-[Obergefell v. Hodges] for her sincerely held religious beliefs on marriage.”
In Obergefell, the Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that the due process clause “of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the right to marry as one of the fundamental liberties it protects, and that analysis applies to same-sex couples in the same manner as it does to opposite-sex couples,” as summarized by Oyez. Put another way, the majority effectively opened the floodgates for “gay marriage” across the country.
According to Liberty Counsel, Davis’ legal troubles began following the Obergefell decision in 2015 when she “ceased issuing any marriage licenses while she sought an accommodation for her religious beliefs.” “The courts,” the organization said, “then used Obergefell … to deny her a religious accommodation that unconstitutionally forced her to choose between her religious beliefs and her livelihood.”
In the petition, Davis’ legal team has asked the justices, in part, to consider whether Obergefell “and the legal fiction of substantive due process, should be overturned.”
As Associate Justice Clarence Thomas predicted in his dissenting opinion in Obergefell, the court’s “inversion of the original meaning of liberty” has produced “collateral damage to other aspects of our constitutional order that protect liberty.” That point has been proven true on the issue of transgenderism, which arguably would not have become as mainstream without the majority’s Obergefell decision.
[READ: The 10 Years Since Obergefell Have Proven Its Critics Right]
Davis’ petition was filed in July, raising questions as to why many major media outlets have suddenly (all at once) decided to widely report on it.
The prospect of SCOTUS potentially taking up Davis’ case is significant when considering that the current makeup of the Supreme Court is notably different from when the high court handed down its ill-fated Obergefell ruling.
Republican appointees currently hold a 6-3 majority on the high court, with three of those justices (Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito) having dissented in Obergefell. Meanwhile, of those in the majority decision, only Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are still on the court.
[READ: 10 Years After Obergefell, It’s Even More Obvious It Should Be Overturned]
Whether enough justices agree to hear Davis’ case and consider overturning the precedent established in Obergefell remains to be seen. At least four justices must agree to hear a case before it can be considered by the full court.
Those who will likely be pivotal in determining if the matter is ultimately taken up later this year will be Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, as well as the notoriously political Roberts.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
