# 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:** 14
### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2025, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/261 "2025-09-09T18:00:58Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> It is just a quibble, as I’m sure most people just mean “non-factual” when they use the term fiction. But I do think referring to them as legends gives a better idea of how they were believed to have been written.
Generally, the difference as I understand it is that fiction is completely made up and not intended to be treated as fact. A legend, on the other hand, has some kind of historical basis, but can’t be verified, and has plausible elements and other elements that are likely embellished. And the Gospels fit into that latter category.
It doesn’t mean the Gospels should be treated as historical fact, of course, except what bits might have reliable corroboration. (And I’m sure most history as we understand it is pieced together from legends anyway; we just have to go by the best of what we can gather from what sources we have.)
---
### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2025, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/262 "2025-09-09T18:42:36Z")
> [@Atamasama](#):
>
> A legend, on the other hand, has some kind of historical basis, but can’t be verified, and has plausible elements and other elements that are likely embellished.
Strictly speaking, legends do not need to have some kind of historical basis. They can, and often do, but they can also be things that never happened and indeed could not happen. They are traditional narratives that are told as plausible.
---
### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2025, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/263 "2025-09-09T19:11:55Z")
TL, DR: On what basis could the Court overturn _Obergefell v. Hodges_ other than “we really really don’t like it”? More broadly given that the Supreme Court is the end of the line for judicial appeal, and thus in a common law system like the US’s where _stare decisis_ is an important principle, on what basis can **any** previous Court ruling be overturned? Different sources claim that S.C. decisions have been reversed or overturned (not just rendered moot by constitutional amendment like _Dred Scott_) between 140 and 230 times; what was the Court’s reasoning?
---
### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2025, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/264 "2025-09-09T19:13:48Z")
They are going to invoke the ancient legal precedent of “Because we can vs What are you going to do about it”
---
### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2025, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/265 "2025-09-09T19:18:16Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> More broadly given that the Supreme Court is the end of the line for judicial appeal, and thus in a common law system like the US’s where _stare decisis_ is an important principle, on what basis can **any** previous Court ruling be overturned?
The same basis which was used to overturn Roe v. Wade, and which Clarence Thomas has already mentioned in regards to Obergefell: that previous rulings which were based on “substantive due process” incorrectly applied that principle.
> [@](#):
>
> Davis’ petition argues the issue of marriage should be treated the same way the court handled the issue of abortion in its [2022 decision](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-overturns-roe-wade-landmark-case-abortion/story?id=85160781) to overturn Roe v Wade. She zeroes in on Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurrence in that case, in which he [explicitly called for revisiting Obergefell.](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-opens-door-overturning-rights-contraceptives-sex/story?id=85639162)
>
> The justices “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote at the time, referring to the landmark decisions dealing with a fundamental right to privacy, due process and equal protection rights.
> **[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.
---
### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2025, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/266 "2025-09-09T19:31:06Z")
Urgh, tried to read Wikipedia’s article on substantive due process and it made my head swim.
**ETA:** Apparently the whole issue is the struggle over “natural” rights and their conflict with the “police power” of the government– the general authority of government to regulate, restrict or prohibit via due process of law. Or in other words, how do you enumerate the unenumberated?
---
### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2025, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/267 "2025-09-09T19:46:11Z")
> [@Frodo](#):
>
> “Because we can vs What are you going to do about it”
It pisses me off how well that strategy works today.
---
### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2025, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/268 "2025-09-09T21:37:05Z")
Ditto
---
### Author:  [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2025, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/269 "2025-09-10T00:44:00Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> But when it comes to Jesus’s sayings, they’re all mixed up and put in different places in teh narrative. If Luke were copying Matthew, it would be expected they’d also keep the sayings in the same order.
>
> A proposed reason is that there was an additional source that Matthew and Luke both had, separately. And that source would be just a list of saying of Jesus, and that each writer chose when to slot them into the story. Hence why the results are so different.
And the retort to that (not my own of course, some scholar) is that there are in fact a couple narrative sections that Matthew and Luke have in common but which are not found in Mark, so the idea of this hypothetical Q as a sayings gospel kind of goes out the window (because we must now account for these narrative commonalities as well).
Ultimately, I am just not convinced that there is enough reason to infer the existence of a written source that was both (a) so important to early Christians that it found its way into two gospels, and yet (b) not important enough to survive independently as a written source.
Q was invented when biblical scholars (who, to this day, are predominantly Christian, and thus liable to bias in favor of multiplying allegedly independent sources to lend weight to the veracity of the gospels as history) assumed that Matthew and Luke must have been written independently, and yet for some reason the hypothesis survives even now as we have reason to believe that Luke may have been written several years at least after Matthew (meaning the author of Luke could have had access to Matthew and massaged and rearranged things to suit his own message).
---
### Author:  [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2025, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/270 "2025-09-10T17:10:46Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> Different sources claim that S.C. decisions have been reversed or overturned (not just rendered moot by constitutional amendment like _Dred Scott_) between 140 and 230 times; what was the Court’s reasoning
at it’s most simple, the prior decision got it wrong. _Stare Decisis_ is indeed an important concept and guiding principle for the legal system, it is not an absolute rule that every prior decision is correct and can never be challenged again.
---
### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2025, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/271 "2025-10-09T15:11:39Z")
He’s a bit more optimistic than I am:
> **[Justice Anthony Kennedy predicts his opinion legalizing same-sex marriage...](https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/09/politics/anthony-kennedy-obergefell-same-sex-marriage-adoption-supreme-court-overturn)**
>
> The current court majority has shown no collective interest in discarding the decade-old landmark. And Kennedy stressed his belief in a core judicial principle of adherence to precedent, known by the Latin phrase stare decisis.
---
### Author:  [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2025, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/272 "2025-10-09T17:40:09Z")
I don’t know how he can honestly believe that anymore, after the overturning of Roe and numerous rulings giving all kinds of unenumerated powers to the president, in defiance of the text of the Constitution and in opposition to what the framers intended. I’m pretty sure they did **not** mean the president was above the law, could re-appropriate money Congress had allocated for another purpose, could refuse to enforce laws he doesn’t like, etc. Their opinions do not state those things that baldly, but those are the effects.
Stare decisis is dead.
---
### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2025, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/273 "2025-10-10T06:32:27Z")
He’s a doddering old man to whom memories and voices from decades ago are more present than the present moment itself. The older you get, the present gets fuzzier and the past gets sharper. Especially since he retired from the law biz.
---
### Author:  [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2025, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/274 "2025-10-17T03:00:08Z")
The New York times has an interview ([gift link](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/opinion/amy-coney-barrett-interesting-times-podcast.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uE8.FPAa.U3XPEaRK8Jnt&smid=url-share)) with Amy Coney Barrett. It covers a lot of topics that are unrelated to this thread, and she refuses to explicitly discuss any possible upcoming cases, but there are a couple of quotes that to me strongly suggest she would likely be against over turning Obergefell. There are relatively large quotes but they represent only a small part of the much larger interview so I think they should be OK under fair use.
When discussing which “liberties” she sees as covered by the 14th Ammendment:
> **Douthat:** Liberties, to be clear, that are not themselves enumerated in the Constitution —
>
> **Barrett:** That are not themselves enumerated. Well, to be tricky — and I’ll try to avoid going into complete law professor mode — that word “liberty” in the 14th Amendment does incorporate many of the guarantees that are specifically stated in the Bill of Rights and make it so that states have to respect, say, freedom of religion, the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures and so on. Because were it not for the 14th Amendment, everything in the Bill of Rights would constrain only the federal government.
>
> So yes, that word, “liberty,” does protect some content above and beyond things that are expressly stated in the Constitution. But you see the problem. I might think a lot of things are in “liberty” that you may not think are in “liberty” that one would disagree with. And there’s a lot of risk — this has been a very contested area of constitutional law for a long time — in making judges the final arbiters of exactly what the content of that word, “liberty,” is.
>
> So in an effort to reconcile this idea that the Supreme Court is neither a constitution maker nor a democratically representative body, a much less branch of government, the test says: Well, if there are some things that are so deeply entrenched and so fundamentally a part of American society that they go without saying — we don’t need to enumerate them or say them out loud — then those are the kinds of things where it’s so widely understood that we don’t have to put it in writing; we don’t have to commit it to paper or commit it to parchment, so to speak, then those kinds of things inhere in that word “liberty,” and they have the status of constitutional guarantee.
>
> But that’s a small step.
>
> **Douthat:** What would be some examples of those kinds of liberties, apart from the abortion question?
>
> **Barrett:** Marriage, the right to direct the upbringing of one’s children — these are all ones I’m pulling from precedent — the right to use contraception.
>
> The court has said that the ones that are not included are the right to assisted suicide and the right to abortion. I think those are probably the two most prominent ones that have been held not on the list.
Later on when they are discussing overturning precedent
> **Douthat:** How do you tell when it’s OK to overturn precedent?
>
> **Barrett:** So stare decisis itself is a doctrine and has its own legal tests. We’re talking about Dobbs. That’s a good example. I’ve talked about the doctrinal test of substantive due process, which is the way to measure whether Roe was rightly decided.
>
> But the question of when you decide whether to overturn precedent is never just: Is this decision right or wrong? Because if that’s the only question, well, then you don’t need stare decisis, because you just decide what you think is right every time.
>
> The doctrine of stare decisis is the second stage of the analysis, because if a decision is wrong, then you have to decide whether you should keep it, for many of the reasons you say — stability, reliance interests, etc.
>
> **Douthat:** What are reliance interests? What does that term mean?
>
> **Barrett:** Reliance interests are things that would be upset or undone if a decision is undone. Typically, when the doctrine of stare decisis was first articulated in the law, the classic examples were property and contract. If you have a particular law that governs the sale of homes, for example, and the court overturns a precedent of real estate or property law, all of a sudden it could call into question title to hundreds of houses in a way that would be hard to undo.
>
> And you can imagine many things like that, particularly in commercial interests. Those are the classic law professor cases where you point to reliance interests.
>
> **Douthat:** Can there be social reliance interests, in the sense of people making life choices on the basis of a right being protected?
>
> **Barrett:** Depends what you mean by social reliance interests.
>
> **Douthat:** Well, to make it concrete: in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court recognized a right to same-sex marriage. Originalist justices at the time believed that ruling was wrongly decided. One of the arguments for why Obergefell v. Hodges is unlikely to ever be overturned is the idea that people have made decisions about who to marry and therefore where to live and children —
>
> **Barrett:** And children.
>
> **Douthat:** And everything else, right? On the basis of that ruling.
>
> **Barrett:** Yes, those are absolutely reliance interests, but I wouldn’t describe them — when you said social reliance interests, that sounds like things in the air. But those are very concrete reliance interests. So those would be classic reliance interests in the terms of the law, in terms of legal doctrine. Those are financial, those are medical, those are — well, you can imagine, going on.
So my reading is that it appears that she does believe that marriage is a “liberty” that is protected by the 14th amendment and that given that people have made decisions on that basis of same sex marriage being legal that would cause chaos if undone. So if Roberts, who in general seems to want to keep the court out of politics, also decides not to rock the boat, there is a good chance that same sex marriage is safe for now.
---
### Author:  [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2025, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/275 "2025-10-17T03:05:47Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#):
>
> Roberts, who in general seems to want to keep the court out of politics
Objection, assumes facts not in evidence.
---
### Author:  [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2025, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/276 "2025-10-17T03:19:24Z")
Believing the Constitution protects a right to marriage, as Barrett says, and finding the Constitution protects a right to marry someone of the same gender are two vastly different things. At least to those right wing Justices who choose to define a right based on the people who have traditionally enjoyed it.
---
### Author:  [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2025, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/277 "2025-10-17T03:25:31Z")
But that is where the second quote comes in. Now that gays are allowed to marry, she sees them as having a very strong “reliance Interest” in that right being preserved.
---
### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2025, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/278 "2025-10-17T05:51:06Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#):
>
> Now that gays are allowed to marry, she sees them as having a very strong “reliance Interest” in that right being preserved.
As in, she might think it should have never happened (or at least not in the way it did) but now it’s too late to undo it, because it would cause too many problems.
---
### Author:  [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2025, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/279 "2025-10-17T07:32:20Z")
Right, so we’re good, right?
It’s not as if she was crossing her fingers behind her back at her confirmation hearing (along with the other two Trump justices) when asked about _Roe._
---
### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2025, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943/280 "2025-10-17T11:17:01Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#):
>
> Now that gays are allowed to marry, she sees them as having a very strong “reliance Interest” in that right being preserved.
Now that abortion has been allowed in the US for way longer than gays have been allowed to marry…
Now that guns rights have had restrictions in the US for way longer than gays have been allowed to marry…
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943.md?page=13)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-davis-asks-supreme-court-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ruling-of-2015/1021943.md?page=15)