The Supreme Court on Monday declined an opportunity to overturn its landmark precedent recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, tossing aside an appeal that had roiled LGBTQ advocates who feared the conservative court might be ready to revisit the decade-old decision.
Instead, the court denied an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who now faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees for refusing to issue marriage licenses after the court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges allowed same-sex couples to marry.
The court did not explain its reasoning to deny the appeal, which had received outsized attention – in part because the court’s 6-3 conservative majority three years ago overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion that 1973 decision established. Since then, fears about Obergefell being the precedent to fall have grown.
It didn’t make it. It was rejected by the supreme court at a preliminary stage. The case was not heard by the court.
Anyone with a federal appellate ruling can appeal to the supreme court. That appeal is just a request. The supreme court refuses the vast majority of them.
All this says about the country is that one horrible woman can afford a lawyer, and refuses to take no for an answer.