# Kim Davis asks Supreme Court to overturn gay marriage ruling of 2015
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [August 11, 2025, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943 "2025-08-11T21:51:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/1 "2025-08-11T21:51:35Z")
Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, who was sanctioned for refusing to grant same-sex marriage licenses some years ago, is now petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn _Obergefell v. Hodges,_ the landmark ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide 10 years ago.
> **[Supreme Court formally asked to overturn landmark same-sex marriage ruling](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-formally-asked-overturn-landmark-same-sex/story?id=124465302)**
>
> 10 years after the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to all same-sex couples, it will consider whether to take a case asking it to overturn the decision.
Fuck this asshole.
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/2 "2025-08-11T22:01:59Z")
I’m curious, given the composition of this particular SCOTUS, on what basis Obergefell would be allowed to survive and _not_ be overturned. Just stare decisis?
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/3 "2025-08-11T22:17:00Z")
They could decide not to take the case, or could determine Davis has no standing.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/4 "2025-08-11T22:31:47Z")
What I find astonishing is that someone could be so motivated to meddle in the affairs of others that don’t in any way affect them personally that they’re willing to endure no end of costs and penalties. The hate in them must be a powerful thing. Davis was jailed for six days and currently owes $360,000 in fines and costs awarded by a jury for her despicable actions.
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> Just stare decisis?
The strongest case for _stare decisis_ was _Roe v Wade_, which had been of long standing and widely considered settled law. If this pack of activist clowns didn’t care about it then, they wouldn’t hesitate to overturn _Obergefell_ if the inclination struck them.
First Amendment arguments are bogus when they seriously infringe the human rights of others. Those who feel otherwise should be asked how they would feel if a community with a significant Muslim population declared they must be ruled by Sharia law, which might including chopping off the hands of thieves and death by public stoning of adulterers and homosexuals, because, you know, it’s all about religious freedom, praise the Lord or Allah.
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### Author:  [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/5 "2025-08-11T22:34:59Z")
What an absolute garbage human being.
I give this about a 90% chance of success.
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### Author:  [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/6 "2025-08-11T22:40:07Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> If this pack of activist clowns didn’t care about it then, they wouldn’t hesitate to overturn _Obergefell_ if the inclination struck them.
I don’t think it should be overturned, but it was activist judges that _gave_ us the Obergefell decision.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/7 "2025-08-11T22:42:53Z")
Your definition, please, for “activist judge”?
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### Author:  [@Jihi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jihi)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/8 "2025-08-11T22:44:20Z")
A 90% chance sounds low to me. Let’s not forget that one of the six useless assholes currently occupying the Supreme Court has already said he wants to overturn same-sex marriage along with a bunch of other rights.
> **[Clarence Thomas’s Most Terrifying Wish Is About to Come True](https://newrepublic.com/post/198990/supreme-court-clarence-thomas-same-sex-marriage)**
>
> The Supreme Court has been asked to hear a new case about the future of same-sex marriage.
The far right in this country is not going to be happy until it’s stamped on the faces of every single man woman and child that doesn’t fit their preconceived notions of what an “American” is. And maybe not even then.
> **[Thomas wants the Supreme Court to overturn landmark rulings that legalized...](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/thomas-wants-supreme-court-overturn-landmark-rulings-legalized-contrac-rcna35228)**
>
> In a concurring opinion to the Supreme Court's ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, the conservative jurist called on the court to overrule a trio of watershed civil rights rulings, writing, "We have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those...
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### Author:  [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/9 "2025-08-11T22:48:46Z")
I’d just like to say that this particular case is of personal importance to me, though it doesn’t affect me personally. I’ve mentioned before that a good friend of mine was one of the attorneys who led the charge to get same-sex marriage legalized.
If there’s any good, it seems like the SCOTUS (outside of Clarence Thomas) appears fairly uninterested in this. At least that’s the impression legal analysts have, per the OP’s cite.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/10 "2025-08-11T22:48:57Z")
> [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](#):
>
> but it was activist judges that _gave_ us the Obergefell decision.
So you say. But the dissent came from Roberts and the usual lunatic trio, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. And I’ve had serious reservations about Roberts ever since he personally engineered the _Citizens United_ ruling, making it a much bigger deal than it needed to be and effectively opening the floodgates to unlimited political spending.
So your view of who the activists really are seems strangely reversed, like looking at a photographic negative. It was the activists who wanted _Obergefell_ rejected.
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### Author:  [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/11 "2025-08-11T22:50:19Z")
It’s time, once again:
_"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.”_
–Isaac Asimov
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/12 "2025-08-11T22:54:50Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> The strongest case for _stare decisis_ was _Roe v Wade_
I’d argue it was _Plessy v Ferguson_
> [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](#):
>
> but it was activist judges that _gave_ us the Obergefell decision.
My question would be if we are not in a theocracy, why should the definition of marriage be forced to be defined by religion?
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### Author:  [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/13 "2025-08-11T22:55:52Z")
I’m sure the definition is “judges who help decide cases that give abberant types more to rights than they deserve”.
Remember they’re still pissed about Brown vs Board (and have passed that down generations).
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### Author:  [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/14 "2025-08-11T22:56:58Z")
Lol called it.
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### Author:  [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/15 "2025-08-11T23:06:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Your definition, please, for “activist judge”?
judges who make rulings that are not clearly supported by the US constitution
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/16 "2025-08-11T23:07:32Z")
And what in the Constitution gives the government the right to restrict marriages to opposite-sex couples?
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### Author:  [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/17 "2025-08-11T23:07:35Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> My question would be if we are not in a theocracy, why should the definition of marriage be forced to be defined by religion?
I don’t think it should. I think Obergefell was a good _practical_ decision that had a shaky _legal_ basis.
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### Author:  [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/18 "2025-08-11T23:09:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> And what in the Constitution gives the government the right to restrict marriages to opposite-sex couples?
you are asking the wrong question. What in the constitution prevents (a state) from doing so is the correct question.
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/19 "2025-08-11T23:09:38Z")
The 14th Amendment says:
> No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Marriage is a privilege and it was being denied to same-sex couples who did not enjoy equal protection to couples who are not same-sex. _Obergefell v. Hodges_ is **clearly** supported by the US Constitution, and that was the basis for the decision.
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### Author:  [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/20 "2025-08-11T23:16:15Z")
> [@Atamasama](#):
>
> Marriage is a privilege and it was being denied to same-sex couples who did not enjoy equal protection to couples who are not same-sex.
the word “privilege” in the context of the 14th amendment has been read by legal scholars to be interpreted in concert with “or immunities” to refer to fundamental rights and protections afforded to individuals, not the common understanding of the word. The right to marriage has not historically been considered a fundamental right to all citizens and therefore the ruling was a stretch to bring marriage within the due process clause, as the majority did.
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