WASHINGTON, DC — THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAS REJECTED AN APPEAL OF its 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that granted on a national level the right of same-sex couples to marry and ended 14 states’ bans on same-sex marriage, the Associated Press reports. The court, without comment, chose not to intervene on behalf of appellant Kim Davis, the former Kentucky court clerk who had refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, who sued to end same-sex marriage and was appealing in order to avoid paying $360,000 in damages and attorney’s fees to a couple denied a marriage license.
The Respect for Marriage Act, which President Joe Biden signed eight years after Obergefell v. Hodges in 2022, gives religious liberty protections to individuals and organizations: they cannot legally be compelled to provide services for marriages to which they object.
The Respect for Marriage Act also protects interracial marriages, by repealing the Defense of Marriage Act.
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