The Supreme Court turns Kim Davis away
Ten years after her refusal, Kim Davis wanted to take marriage equality to the Supreme Court. The answer was brief.
On 10 November 2025, the US Supreme Court's routine order list contained a line that many queer couples in the United States had been waiting for. Kim Davis's petition had been denied. Without explanation and without any member of the court noting a dissent.
Davis had become known around the world ten years earlier. As county clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, she refused in 2015 to issue a marriage licence to David Ermold and David Moore. This happened shortly after the Supreme Court had introduced marriage equality nationwide with its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. Davis invoked her faith. Because she defied a court order, she spent six days in jail.
The couple sued. Years later, a jury awarded them a hundred thousand dollars in damages, plus legal costs. Davis appealed and lost. Before the Supreme Court, she ultimately asked not only to be released from personal liability. She also urged the justices to overturn Obergefell itself, calling the ruling a "legal fiction". It was the first formal request of its kind since 2015.
Nerves were on edge. In several states there were moves against marriage equality, and the same court had already struck down the nationwide right to abortion in 2022. Many experts considered the case unsuitable, but the uncertainty remained until the end.
After the decision, the couple's lawyer spoke of a victory for all same-sex couples. For the estimated more than eight hundred thousand married same-sex couples in the country, it was above all a relief. Marriage equality is not permanently secured, however. The court merely decided not to take up this one case.