WASHINGTON (AP) — A call to overturn a landmark supreme court Legalization decision same-sex marriage Nationwide issues were on the agenda during Friday’s closed session of judges.
Among the new cases the justices are expected to consider are: kim davisa former Kentucky court clerk, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples following the court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Davis was seeking to ask the court to vacate a lower court order that ordered the couple to pay $360,000 in damages and attorney’s fees after denying them a marriage license.
The justices could announce their next move as early as Monday.
In urging the court to take up her case, Davis’ lawyers repeatedly cited the words of Justice Clarence Thomas, the only one of the nine justices to seek to overturn the same-sex marriage ruling.
Thomas was one of four justices who dissented in 2015. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito are other dissenters who also remain on the court.
Roberts has remained silent on the matter since writing a dissent to the lawsuit. Alito has continued to criticize the decision, but recently said he was not advocating overturning it.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who did not appear on the court in 2015, said there are times when courts should right wrongs and overturn decisions, like the 2022 case that ended the constitutional right to abortion.
However, Barrett recently suggested that same-sex marriage may fall into a different category than abortion because people have relied on that decision to get married and have children.
Davis brought national attention to Rowan County in eastern Kentucky by refusing to accept same-sex couples because her faith did not comply with the high court’s ruling. She did not comply with court orders to issue her license until a federal judge jailed her for contempt of court in September 2015.
She was released after staff issued a license on her behalf, but her name was removed from the form. The Kentucky General Assembly then enacted a law to remove the names of all county employees from the state’s marriage licenses.
Davis lost re-election in 2018.
