Supreme court rulings on gay marriage

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Wade, was one example.

The majority 2022 opinion on Dobbs pronounced that its legal argument was confined specifically to abortion. "You're probably going to see something just like that, where a county clerk refuses to issue a license, they're held in contempt and they sue, and it works its way up the courts."

'Scary, but real'

Some LGBTQ+ households are starting to ask themselves: What's your plan of action?

They want to make the case a judgment on Obergefell itself. "Make sure your will is in order, that your health proxy is set up, that everything is clearly spelled out. New Jersey has very strong protections, but obviously many states don't."

Federally, the Respect for Marriage Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden, also in 2022, requires federal and state governments to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages, according to the laws of the state where the marriage occurred.

Alito dissented in Obergefell, contending that the Constitution leaves the same-sex marriage “question to be decided by the people of each state.” During a recent appearance in Washington, D.C., Alito again criticized the decision but indicated that he was “not suggesting that the decision … should be overruled.”

Two of the other dissenters in Obergefell – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas – are still on the court.

"In 2022, they rewrote the marriage laws to be gender-neutral," Kavin said, "in anticipation that something might change on the federal level. Justices weigh revisiting landmark issue

Her appeal led to speculation about whether the court – which has become more conservative since it narrowly struck down same-sex marriage bans – would take another look at it.

"Today, five lawyers have ordered every state to change their definition of marriage," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his 2015 dissent.

Moreover, even if there are four justices who might be inclined to do so, they won’t want to grant review unless they are confident that there is a fifth vote to overturn Obergefell.

Although we don’t know whether Davis has the votes, it remains possible. But just one day after Davis’ petition was distributed to the justices’ chambers, the court directed Moore and Ermold to file a response – a process that only requires the vote of at least one justice.

Represented by (among others) William Powell and the Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, Moore and Ermold called Davis’s case a “relatively easy” one “that does not merit” the justices’ intervention.

The justices could act on Davis’ petition for review as soon as Nov. 10. But when Moore and Ermold returned to the Rowan County Clerk’s office, seeking a marriage license in light of Bunning’s order, Davis and her deputies once more refused to issue them one.

Davis’ office began to issue licenses again in 2016, after the Kentucky Legislature passed a law that sought to accommodate clerks opposed to same-sex marriage by removing their names and signatures from the licensing forms.

“Now is not the time to let down our guard.”

But who could say, in light of the anti-DEI policies of the new administration, and the past actions of the Supreme Court, that they couldn't happen?'

"Some of it is unlikely, but I don't think any of it is impossible," said Rick Kavin, a politicalscience teacher whose courses "Law and Politics" and "LGBTQ+ Politics in America" are offered at Rutgers University.

"It's way more likely than it was five years ago, that's for sure," he said.

First, they wrote, she didn’t make the “current version” of her First Amendment argument until relatively late in the game – in her reply in the 6th Circuit, “filed nine years into the case. The court of appeals acknowledged that in Obergefell the Supreme Court observed that “many people ‘deem same-sex marriage to be wrong’ based on ‘religious or philosophical premises.’” “But those opposed to same-sex marriage,” the court of appeals wrote, “do not have a right to transform their ‘personal opposition’ into ‘enacted law and public policy.’” “The Bill of Rights,” the court stated, “would serve little purpose if it could be freely ignored whenever an official’s conscience so dictates.”

Davis came to the Supreme Court on July 24, asking the justices to review the 6th Circuit’s decision.

During his first term in office, President Donald Trump appointed Gorsuch (to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, the fourth dissenter) and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Whether at least five of these six justices would vote to overturn Obergefell remains to be seen.

The justices are scheduled to consider Davis’ case at their private conference on Nov.

7. What's your escape route? Until it happened.

"There are things percolating," Kavin said. Texas from 2003, which is the sodomy case," Kavin said. Now, he's worried.

But there has not been the same kind of conservative movement to take back marriage rights for same-sex couples as there was to get rid of the constitutional right to an abortion.

There are an estimated 823,000 married same-sex couples in the United States, more than double the number in 2015, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, a think tank that researches sexual orientation and gender identity issues.

"There’s good reason for the Supreme Court to deny review in this case rather than unsettle something so positive for couples, children, families, and the larger society as marriage equality," Mary Bonauto, a senior director with LGBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, said when Davis filed her appeal.

Davis made headlines when she refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples after the Supreme Court's 2015 decision, landing her in jail for five days on a contempt of court charge.

When Davis was sued by David Ermold and David Moore, she argued that legal protections that provide immunity for public officials prevented the challenge.

"Based on things we've heard the Supreme Court say in the past, I think they're going after anything that's not traditional. Now she wants to cancel gay marriage.

After the district court ruled against Davis, she was ordered to pay $100,000 in damages to the couple and $260,000 for their attorneys' fees and expenses.

“If ever a case deserved review,” her lawyers wrote in their unsuccessful appeal to the high court, “the first individual who was thrown in jail post-Obergefell for seeking accommodation for her religious beliefs should be it.”

But Notre Dame Law School Professor Richard Garnett said Davis’ appeal was a “minor, fact-bound petition” that didn’t clearly give the justices the opportunity to revisit their 2015 decision.

"Although various commentators and activists have spent weeks claiming that a vehicle for overturning Obergefell was being considered by the justices, no informed court observers ever thought that the court would grant review in this case,” he said.

There was no hurry.

Then came Election Day: Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024.