Is gay marriage legal in kentucky 2025

The U. Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses, filed an appeal on July 24 about the compensation she was ordered to pay to a gay couple she denied a license. She asked the court, which holds a conservative supermajority, to overturn Obergefell v. But legal experts previously told USA TODAY that the court is unlikely to overturn that ruling.

The couple who sued Davis , David Ermold and David Moore, argue the high court should decline to hear the case. Court of Appeals showed any interest in Davis's rehearing petition, and we are confident the Supreme Court will likewise agree that Davis's arguments do not merit further attention," their attorney William Powell said in a statement to ABC News. The appeal, which quotes heavily from two current Justices who dissented to the gay marriage ruling at the time — Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts — also asks the high court to go after an even deeper set of legal standards known as substantive due process. Under this concept, courts have found that the due process protections of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments create rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution to privacy, interracial marriage, same-sex marriage, and, until the decision overturning Roe v.

Kim Davis, a former clerk who refused gay couples, brought the appeal. Ten years after the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide, the justices this fall will consider for the first time whether to take up a case that explicitly asks them to overturn that decision. In a petition for writ of certiorari filed last month, Davis argues First Amendment protection for free exercise of religion immunizes her from personal liability for the denial of marriage licenses. More fundamentally, she claims the high court's decision in Obergefell v Hodges -- extending marriage rights for same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment's due process protections -- was "egregiously wrong.

Former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis has petitioned the Supreme Court to revisit Obergefell v. Hodges , the landmark decision that established the right to same-sex marriage in the U. Davis, who earned national infamy after refusing to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples in the wake of Obergefell , is only a single cog — albeit a well-publicized one — in the national effort by conservatives to reverse what seemed like settled law just 10 years ago. But attempts to expand the practice are nonetheless concerning, as they indicate surging desire among Republican lawmakers to define marriage as a religious rite through state channels.