WASHINGTON, D.C., (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it has declined to hear a case that might have led the high court to reconsider its 2015 decision to recognize a constitutional right to same-sex “marriage.”
The court turned down a petition from Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky, who had objected to issuing same-sex “marriage” licences based on her religious beliefs.
“Believing marriage as a union between one man and one woman, Davis ceased issuing any marriage licenses from June 29 to early September 2015 while she sought an accommodation for her religious beliefs. But two sets of plaintiffs, including David Ermold and David Moore, sought to mock Davis’ Christian faith by forcing her name on their marriage license through litigation,” explained a statement from attorneys Liberty Counsel (LC), the organization that represented Davis.
“In 2017, Ermold and Moore amended their complaint and sued Davis in her individual capacity for emotional distress for ‘hurt feelings.’ In addition to six days in jail, Davis was held liable for $360,000 in damages and attorney’s fees over their ‘hurt feelings’ stemming from her religious expression.”
By declining to hear the case, “SCOTUS leaves the wrongly decided Obergefell opinion in place. The Court also leaves unresolved an important constitutional question of whether the First Amendment’s complementary protections of Free Speech and Free Exercise Clause protect government officials sued in their individual capacity for actions taken based on their religious beliefs.”
“The denial also leaves in place a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that held Davis personally liable for a same-sex couple’s ‘hurt feelings’ from not getting a marriage license from Davis due to her upholding her religious views on marriage,” added LC.
“Davis was jailed, hauled before a jury, and now faces crippling monetary damages based on nothing more than purported hurt feelings. By denying this petition, the High Court has let stand a decision to strip a government defendant of their immunity and any personal First Amendment defense for their religious expression,” said Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver. “This cannot be right because government officials do not shed their constitutional rights upon election. Like the abortion decision in Roe v. Wade, Obergefell was egregiously wrong from the start. This opinion has no basis in the Constitution. We will continue to work to overturn Obergefell. It is not a matter of if, but when the Supreme Court will overturn Obergefell.”
Thirty-two states still have duly-enacted same-sex “marriage” bans on the books, according to World Population Review (which lists 33, but has not been updated to reflect Colorado’s recent repeal of its unenforced ban), all of which are blocked from enforcement. Only 18 states plus the District of Columbia have no ban in place.
As a practical matter, even if the Supreme Court reversed Obergefell, recognition of same-sex “marriage” would still be mandatory nationwide, thanks to former President Joe Biden signing the so-called Respect for Marriage Act in 2023.
Three of the current sitting justices – Chief Justice John Roberts and conservatives Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – dissented from Obergefell. The latter two are considered reliable votes to overturn if the chance arises, given statements both have made in the years since. But it is less certain how Roberts and the court’s three more recent Republican appointees would rule, given past statements about deferring to precedent and their mixed records on cases important to conservatives.
Meanwhile, at least half a dozen states have adopted resolutions urging the nation’s highest court to reverse Obergefell. They have no legal force nor can they begin any legal battle that could eventually put the issue back before the nation’s highest court, but they raise awareness of an issue that, while long since declared “settled” by the establishments of both parties, remains a serious affront to biblical morality and a grave concern for conservative Christians.
The battle to restore the immutable definition of marriage is far from over
Nonetheless, a massive coalition to overturn the Supreme Court’s ill-conceived 2015 ruling was announced in September.
“They didn’t hear [Kim Davis’s] case. But my coalition will bring SCOTUS something that they will need to address,” averred Katy Faust – founder of the global children’s rights group, Them Before Us – who is leading the movement to right the wrongs produced by Obergefell.
They didn’t hear her case. But my coalition will bring SCOTUS something that they will need to address.
In the meantime, I hope Kim gets paid back the hundreds of thousands that those emotional children demanded of her. https://t.co/eUHBbBrVNR
— Katy Faust (@Advo_Katy) November 10, 2025
“SCOTUS needs to know this isn’t going away,” declared journalist and author Megan Basham on X. “With more than a decade now to understand the harms that same-sex marriage has done to the rights of children, committed Christians are going to keep fighting for the fall of Obergefell just as we fought for the fall of Roe.”
“If it has to be a multi-generational fight, so be it. We will not tire,” she added.
For years, homosexual activists have portrayed themselves as victims of heteronormative culture as they sought to establish the right to legally marry among the same sex, to obtain children, and to claim an array of additional LGBT imagined “rights.” They argued that there would be no impact on the rest of society, but as it turns out, legalizing same-sex “marriage” has led to a cascade of devastating consequences for children.
The Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision handed privileges to homosexual adults while stealing inviolable rights and protections away from children. It elevated the desires of adults over the universal longings of children. Because of same-sex “marriage,” children are now routinely starved of maternal or paternal love, acquired by predators, mass produced, and trafficked across borders. They struggle with identity confusion and are subjected to risky households.
“This is not about targeting lesbians or gays,” said Faust in September. “This is about defending children from a legal regime that has victimized and commodified them.”
“We must re-establish the preeminence of parent/child relationship through policy and strategic court cases,” said Faust. “We need to force the Supreme Court to choose: natural parenthood or state-assigned parenthood. They cannot have both.”
“We must change public opinion, but that won’t happen until we change [our perception of who is] the victim,” explained Faust. “If we are to retake legal marriage, we need to highlight the real victims: the children.”
