Is the Supreme Court’s Same-Sex Marriage Ruling at Risk?
How cases reach the Supreme Court.
Happy Friday, everyone! The big news today, of course, is President Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. I previewed the summit in yesterday’s newsletter, and will certainly have more for you next week when we know what (if anything) came out of the sit-down.
This morning, I want to share my weekly mailbag column for paid subscribers — except, instead of answering multiple questions, I’m going to go deep on one big one that I received from several readers: Is the Supreme Court’s decision overturning same-sex marriage in danger?
I’ll answer that question below, but in Wake Up To Politics style, I’ll also try to go a bit deeper, giving you some broader context on how exactly the Supreme Court decides which cases to take and which ones to ignore.
If you’ve ever wondered how a legal dispute becomes a Supreme Court case, this newsletter is for you.
Q: Everyone in my circles has been ringing the alarm bells about Kim Davis’s official challenge to Obergefell v. Hodges. After reading a single article I know the situation is not as dire as everyone is making it out to be, but could you shed some light on how the process of an official judicial challenge works and what could come of this one?
Q: The Supreme Court has been asked to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in the US. I’ve been waiting to hear your take on this – if it is even likely to be heard by the Supreme Court, and how it fits in with the progression of the Project 2025 agenda.
Let’s quickly review the context here. In June 2015, the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. At the time, Kim Davis was the county clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky. She made national headlines when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling.
To make a decade-long story short, the couples sued Davis; she was ordered by a federal court to issue the licenses; she refused; she was jailed for contempt of court; she was ultimately released after she agreed to let her deputy clerks issue the licenses; a couple from the original lawsuit sued to get Davis to pay their legal fees and damages for emotional distress; she argued that she was immune from such a lawsuit as a government official; a federal district judge and then a federal appeals court sided with the couple; Davis is now appealing to the Supreme Court.
(Sidenote: This has now stretched on so long that Davis is no longer the Rowan County Clerk. Notably, Democrat Elwood Caudill defeated her in her 2018 re-election bid, 54%-46%, despite the fact that Rowan County has voted for Donald Trump by more than 20 percentage points all three times he’s been on the ballot.)
When litigants ask the Supreme Court to take up a case, they are asked to frame the legal questions they want the case to decide. In her petition, Davis asked the justices not just to decide her dispute about damages and legal fees. She also went one step further: she asked them to overturn Obergefell entirely.
How likely is it that the Supreme Court will take up Davis’ request? And how do the justices decide which cases to consider? Let’s dive in: