The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide whether to hear a case asking it to overturn its landmark 2015 decision that recognized gay marriage rights.
A recent appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court seeks to overturn the landmark 2015 case Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, giving the entire LGBTQ+ community reason to be fearful - even if the case is unlikely to be heard by the court.
Kim Davis, a former county clerk from Kentucky, filed a petition in late July asking the court to appeal a decision that she must pay $360,000 in damages and legal fees for refusing to issue a gay couple a marriage license after the Obergefell decision came down. According to the appeal, this infringed upon Davis' First Amendment right to freedom of religion.
There are a variety of reasons gay marriage is likely safe despite this appeal, including changing opinions on the court, public support for same-sex marriage and the 2022 Respect For Marriage Act. It doesn't change the fact that the very notion of this right being overturned is a reminder to the LGBTQ+ community that our rights are dependent upon the whims of politicians and judges and could easily disappear.
I don't trust this Supreme Court to leave same-sex marriage alone.
In 2015, Davis wound up in jail for six days for contempt of court when she refused to grant a marriage license to gay couples in Rowan County, Kentucky. One couple who were refused a license, David Moore and David Ermold, sued Davis for violating their constitutional right to marry.
Moore and Ermold were awarded $50,000 each in damages, plus $260,000 for legal fees. Davis attempted to appeal the ruling with the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals but was denied this March. She then sent her appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in July, which is how we ended up here.
Mat Staver, Davis' lawyer, told Fox News he believes this case will be heard by the nation's highest court based on the fact that three of the dissenting justices from Obergefell - Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito - are still on the court. Other legal scholars aren't so sure that five justices are willing to overrule the case.
Robbie Kaplan, a lawyer who argued in defense of LGBTQ+ rights in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 in a ruling that eventually paved the way for Obergefell, told Axios it would cause a lot more legal problems than it's worth.
"It's not just a recipe for administrative chaos," Kaplan said. "It also would result in an almost indescribable amount of (needless) suffering and heartache."
I'm skeptical that the very court that sent abortion rights back to the states cares about the legal complications that a ruling like this could cause. In the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, Thomas even issued a concurrent opinion saying he believed Obergefell should be reconsidered.
The Supreme Court has also asked Moore and Ermold to respond to Davis' petition, which hints at the possibility that this case could be considered by the court.
Kim Davis' petition reminds us our rights are revocable
Davis' appeal isn't the only attack on gay marriage since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and Republicans took the majority in Congress.
Resolutions were introduced in five states that would have formally asked the Supreme Court to review Obergefell. In two of those states, Idaho and North Dakota, the resolutions passed the House of Representatives before failing in the Senate. While these measures were unsuccessful, it's a sign of growing discontent among Republican politicians with the legality of same-sex marriage.
In June, the Southern Baptist Convention voted for a resolution to ask the court to reconsider gay marriage. A denomination may have no legal authority in our secular government, but the resolution signals that we should be worried.
The fact that these resolutions were even introduced is scary for the LGBTQ+ community. It's a sign that there are still people out there who think we shouldn't be able to marry the people we love, that our rights as couples should differ from the rights of straight couples merely based on a few verses in the Bible. It's a reminder that the rights we fought for years to gain can be reversed, that all it takes is a conservative shift in government to send us back to a time before legal gay marriage.
What would happen if gay marriage were overturned?
Thankfully, Democrats in 2022 passed the Respect For Marriage Act, which says that same-sex and interracial marriages must be recognized by the federal government and every state, even if Obergefell were to fall. However, the loss of the 2015 Supreme Court ruling would affect future generations of LGBTQ+ people looking to get married.
If the Obergefell ruling were overturned tomorrow, same-sex marriage would become illegal in 32 states that have constitutional and/or legislative bans on marriage equality. This would affect more than half of the LGBTQ+ people in the United States.
Per a May 2025 Gallup poll, 68% of Americans say same-sex marriages should be legally recognized. While this is a safe majority of people, support is down from a high of 71% in 2023 - signaling a potential shift in the acceptability of gay marriage nationwide.
I'm also not one to believe that public support will sway the justices from hearing a case. After all, abortion rights were also widely popular, but that didn't stop the court from sending legality back to the states.
Gay marriage is not going to disappear tomorrow. This does mean, however, that gay people are once again being reminded that their rights are dependent on a handful of people and the opinions of politicians and can easily be stripped away. We've already witnessed how the trans community has lost rights in a matter of months.
The more we talk about gay marriage as if it's something that could be questioned legally, the more the public will begin to question whether Obergefell was a mistake. Even if it seems unlikely that the Supreme Court will take up this review, the fact that an appeal was even introduced is bringing anxiety to the LGBTQ+ community - and it should be taken seriously.