Supreme Court Declines Petition Challenging ‘Same-Sex Marriage’ Ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined a request to consider overturning its 2015 decision legalizing “same-sex marriage.”

The Court declined a petition filed by Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who stopped issuing marriage licenses after the Court’s Obergefell decision, asking the Court to reconsider that decision and reverse a $360,000 judgement against her.

No justice wrote a statement registering their dissent from the Court’s decision not to take Davis’ case. At least four justices must vote for the Court to take up a case.

After the Obergefell decision, Davis temporarily stopped issuing any marriage licenses as she sought an accommodation for religious belief that marriage is the exclusive union of one man and one woman.

Three plaintiffs, including David Ermold and David Moore, subsequently sued Davis for not issuing them a marriage license. As a result, Davis was jailed for six days and personally fined $360,000 for emotional distress damages, based on Ermold and Moore’s “hurt feelings.”

Attorneys for Liberty Counsel, a non-profit legal advocacy group, are representing Davis in her case.

“The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to deny the petition for certiorari in Davis v. Ermold is heartbreaking for Kim Davis and for religious freedom,” the organization’s founder and chairman Mat Staver said in a statement.

“Davis was jailed, hauled before a jury, and now faces crippling monetary damages based on nothing more than purported hurt feelings,” he added.

In his dissent to the Court’s decision in Obergefell, Justice Samuel Alito foresaw the dire consequences it would pose for Americans’ right to religious freedom.

“[The Court’s decision] will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy,” the justice predicted.

“I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.”

Ten years later, Justice Alito’s prophecy has proved utterly true. Kim Davis is just one of many faithful Christians targeted by LGBT activists.

Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips endured multiple lawsuits over the course of 12 long years for believing in natural marriage, and the reality of biological sex. In October 2024, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in Jack’s favor, dismissing the latest lawsuit against him for refusing to create a custom cake celebrating a “gender transition.”

Barronelle Stutzman, an 81-year-old grandmother and former owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Washington, was sued by a long-time customer of hers, a homosexual-identified man, for refusing to create a custom floral arrangement for his “wedding.” Stutzman lost her case and was forced to pay $5,000 to the two men who sued her.

Aaron and Melissa Klein, former owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, were forced out of business for refusing to design and create a custom cake for a “same-sex wedding.”

The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries initially imposed a $135,000 fine against the Kleins for violating the state’s public accommodations statute; the agency later reduced the fine to $30,000 after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered their case be reconsidered. The Klein’s case remains ongoing.

In the 10 years since Obergefell, many goodhearted Americans have lost, or had to fight for, their rights to free speech and religious freedom because the Court created a new “right” to same-sex marriage – despite such a right existing nowhere in the text of the Constitution.

As the late great Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent to Obergefell, “[The Court] discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment a ‘fundamental right’ overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since.”

Unless and until the Court revisits its 2015 opinion, Americans’ real rights remain at risk.

For years, advocates of so-called same-sex marriage would condescendingly ask proponents of natural marriage, “How does someone else’s marriage effect you? Why do you care what someone else does in the privacy of their own bedroom?”

For years, the answer has been obvious: advocates of “same-sex marriage” have every intention of forcing a new definition of marriage on everyone else – or risk facing ruinous monetary fines.

Just ask Kim Davis.

The case is Kim Davis v. David Ermold.

Related articles and resources:

Supreme Court to Consider Petition Challenging Same-Sex Marriage Decision

Biblical Perspective on Homosexuality and Same-Sex Marriage

It’s Good the Left Fears the Overturning of Gay ‘Marriage’

Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage Harms Children and Society

Why Focus on the Family Believes Obergefell Must Be Struck Dow

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