Kim Davis denied again: Supreme Court declines to relitigate same-sex marriage
The Supreme Court quietly ignored Kim Davis’s last stand Monday, refusing to revisit its 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Davis, the former Kentucky clerk who once became the patron saint of denying other people’s weddings, had asked the court to declare that her religious beliefs exempted her from following the law.
The challenge to the court’s 2015 ruling came from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky clerk who refused to issue same-sex licenses after the court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
In the aftermath of her refusal, Davis was jailed for acting in contempt of court and lost her clerk re-election. A jury also ordered her to pay $360,000 to a couple who she refused to marry. Davis attempted to get out of paying this verdict by additionally requesting that the court assert that she has a First Amendment religious protection from liability for her actions.
The court declined her petition without comment.
Instead, without comment, the justices declined to hear her appeal, leaving intact the jury verdict that ordered Davis to pay $360,000 to a couple she refused to marry. It’s the latest and likely final rejection of a crusade that began when Davis spent five days in jail for contempt of court and became a right-wing martyr. Her defeat leaves Obergefell v. Hodges intact, at least until Justice Clarence Thomas gets another idea about “reconsidering” settled rights.