Read more at The Advocate.
When the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices meet behind closed doors on Friday, the justices will decide whether to hear an appeal from former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, a name that became synonymous with anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes to marriage equality a decade ago.
Davis, who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after Obergefell v. Hodges made marriage equality the law of the land in 2015, has asked the court not only to overturn her financial settlement in a civil case loss in lower courts but also to reconsider the landmark ruling itself.
While Davis’s petition centers on whether she can be held personally liable for emotional-distress damages, her legal team is also urging the justices to revisit the constitutional right to marry. For those who remember the culture war that surrounded Davis’s defiance, the possibility that her name might again appear on the Supreme Court docket has reignited deep anxiety across the LGBTQ+ community
In separate interviews with The Advocate, Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff whose name now defines that right, and GLAD Law legal director Josh Rovenger described the moment as both surreal and revealing. One is the man who stood before the Court ten years ago and won the right to have his marriage recognized. The other works at the organization that helped secure that victory. Both see the Davis petition not just as a legal maneuver but as a test of whether the country can sustain a principle it once declared settled.
“A narrow case, shoehorning a broad agenda”
Rovenger explained what this case is and what it isn’t.
“This is a narrow case with a technical legal question,” he said, emphasizing that it concerns emotional-distress damages and qualified immunity, not marriage equality itself. “Attorneys who want to overturn Obergefell are trying to shoehorn that into a very narrow case.”
Davis, a former Rowan County clerk, was found liable for denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples in violation of clearly established law. A jury awarded damages to those couples, and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision. Davis’s petition now asks the Supreme Court to review that ruling, Rovinger explained. While she has framed the case as one about her religious freedom, Rovenger said the issue before the Court remains technical.
“The Supreme Court receives thousands of petitions a year,” he said. “It would really be anomalous for them to take a case with such a narrow fact pattern and use it to revisit Obergefell.”
Still, Rovenger acknowledged why people are uneasy.
“Given the rollback of rights we’ve seen in other areas, Dobbs being the most prominent, that fear makes sense,” he said. “But this case is not the vehicle for that kind of sweeping reversal.”
The limits of the Respect for Marriage Act
Part of the current confusion, Rovenger said, stems from uncertainty about how the Respect for Marriage Act interacts with the Obergefell decision. The 2022 law, signed by President Joe Biden, requires states and the federal government to recognize marriages performed in other states. However, it does not compel every state to issue marriage licenses if Obergefell were to be overturned.
“In a world where Obergefell didn’t exist,” he said, “a couple married in one state would still have their marriage recognized federally and by other states, but not necessarily be able to marry everywhere.”
He called that distinction significant, not only for its practical consequences but for what it would signal about equality itself.
“A patchwork approach across states,” he said, “is fundamentally different from a nationwide right.”
Rovenger also pointed to the Supreme Court’s own language on “reliance interests” — the idea that people build their lives on the stability of established rights. Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett, he noted, has recently said marriage equality has created such interests, making it less likely to be undone. Barrett had told the New York Times that Obergefell created “concrete reliance interests.”
“Those interests,” Rovinger said, “remain one of the critical factors the Court considers when deciding whether to revisit precedent.” According to Gallup, 68 percent of Americans support marriage equality.
Jim Obergefell: “Disgusted by this twisting of religious freedom”
For Jim Obergefell, the case is personal. He said he was “disgusted” that his fellow citizens would work against another group’s well-being and happiness, using religious liberty as an excuse.
“This modern version of religious freedom — this belief that one’s personal religion trumps everything else — is a twisting and perverting of what our founders intended,” he said.
Obergefell said Davis’s refusal to follow the law was emblematic of a broader problem: public officials placing private faith above civic duty.
“She swore an oath to serve all people,” he said. “And yet she used her government position to persecute others.”
His frustration extends to the justices themselves and their recent decisions, which have often ignored established understandings of the law. Justice Clarence Thomas recently said that past decisions “aren’t gospel.”
“Why should anyone feel secure about the right to marry,” he asked, “when this Court has proven it doesn’t believe in precedent?”
He pointed to Thomas’s concurrence in the ruling that overturned Roe v. WadeRoe v. Wade, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Thomas explicitly suggested revisiting Obergefell.
“One of those justices’ own marriage exists because of a Supreme Court decision,” Obergefell said, referring to Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 ruling that struck down bans on interracial marriage. Thomas is Black, and his wife, Ginny, is white. “If this Court overturns Obergefell, then what does that say about their own logic?” Obergefell added.
“People should be concerned”
Obergefell said that the LGBTQ+ community’s fear is warranted.
“Absolutely, people should be concerned. I’m concerned,” he said on Saturday. “Yesterday I officiated a wedding for a cousin who asked whether they should get married now instead of waiting. My answer was yes.”
He explained that even with the Respect for Marriage Act in place, states could still move swiftly to block new marriages if Obergefell were struck down.
“Ohio [where I live] still has a Defense of Marriage Act on the books,” he said. “If Obergefell is overturned, Ohio could immediately say, ‘no more marriage licenses for queer couples.’”
Obergefell warned that political forces aligned against LGBTQ+ rights have shown a willingness to manipulate electoral systems to maintain power.
“We have a political party that has turned its back on democracy,” he said. “They’re doing everything they can solely to remain in power — to punish and to be vindictive.”
A fragile majority, a durable principle
Despite deep pessimism about the Court, Obergefell said he still finds hope in younger generations.
“They don’t see difference the way older generations do,” he said. “There are millions of people out there who share my values, who believe in humanity, who believe every person deserves happiness and rights. That gives me hope.”
Rovenger echoed the sentiment, though his version is more procedural.
“We’re all watching closely,” he said. “We’ll keep an eye on whether the case gets relisted and on any separate statements that come out. But we’re not panicking. We’re prepared for all possibilities and ready to meet that moment if it comes.”
For now, the fate of Obergefell doesn’t hinge on oral arguments or public hearings but on what happens in a private conference room inside the marble halls of the Supreme Court. Whether the justices see the Davis case as a technical dispute or a cultural flashpoint will determine not only one woman’s liability but perhaps the trajectory of a right that has defined a generation.
If the Court declines to hear the case, the lower-court rulings stand, and marriage equality remains intact. If it grants review, the nation will enter another defining chapter in its legal history.
Either way, Obergefell’s warning lingers: “They’ve turned the idea of freedom on its head,” he said. “And unless we stand up for what it truly means, we risk losing more than marriage, and we risk losing the very promise of equality itself.”
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