Right-wing hatemonger and former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who made headlines and was jailed for six days in 2015 when she defied the U.S. Supreme Court and its marriage equality ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, is now formally petitioning SCOTUS to overturn the Obergefell ruling, ABC News has reported.
Davis filed her petition for a writ of certiorari last month claiming that freedom of religion protections under the First Amendment “immunizes her from personal liability for the denial of marriage licenses,” according to ABC News. But she is also claiming that the court’s marriage equality ruling based on the 14th Amendment right to due process was “egregiously wrong.”
ABC News notes that Davis’ lawyer, Mathew Staver with the right-wing mouthpiece Liberty Counsel, has demanded that “the mistake” be “immediately corrected, and has called now-retired Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell “legal fiction.”
Mathew Staver with the right-wing mouthpiece Liberty Counsel, has demanded that “the mistake” be “immediately corrected, and has called now-retired Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell “legal fiction.”
It’s no secret that the U.S. Supreme Court has fallen under the partisan control of right-wing extremists and Donald Trump’s MAGA party, and Justice Clarence Thomas, after the court overturned Roe v. Wade with its 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, said very clearly that he believes the court should “reconsider” its rulings not just in the Obergefell case but also in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruling that overturned sodomy laws in Texas and the rest of the country.
Now, with Davis’ petition giving the court “reason” to reconsider its Obergefell ruling, the danger to marriage equality — already grave — has just skyrocketed.
ABC News reports, “Lower courts have dismissed Davis’ claims and most legal experts consider her bid a long shot. A federal appeals court panel concluded earlier this year that the former clerk ‘cannot raise the First Amendment as a defense because she is being held liable for state action, which the First Amendment does not protect.’”
But then again, when have the right-wing extremists — including those on the U.S. Supreme Court — ever cared about whether their ideology is legal or constitutional, or about what legal scholars have to say?
— Tammye Nash