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.
If they want to rule arbitrarily on this, then there’s no reason to avoid this particular case. If they don’t want to rule arbitrarily, then they need to think through the implications, and there is no getting around some major practical issues.
Thomas has explicitly signalled that he wants to revisit Obergefell, and Barrett probably would, too. Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch, though, probably want to leave it alone, and combined with the three liberal justices, they ended it all right here.