Supreme Court Asked to Reverse Same Sex Marriage

Anyone who took the time to peruse Project 2025 - a white "Christian" nationalist agenda to return America to 1950 - would quickly come to two quick conclusions: (i) non-discrimination protections for non-whites were targeted for erasure and (ii) gays, especially same sex marriage, were to be targeted.  Since the Felon regained the White House, diversity, federal equity and inclusion initiatives have been  ended and major universities that had such programs have been threatened and intimidated to end them. Now, the thrice divorced Kim Davis (now on marriage number four), the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed in 2015 for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses, is appealing her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Davis claims that same sex marriage offends her religious beliefs and sullies the sanctity of marriage.  As is the norm with so many self-style evangelical "Christians", hypocrisy is one of Davis' key attributes. Should SCOTUS reverse its Obergefell decision, same sex marriages in many states, including Virginia, would be voided and many LGBT Americans would find their relationships discriminated against and would lose over a thousand rights that stem from the word "marriage" in statutes.  Those like Davis (who I suspect my southern belle grandmother would deem "white trash"), of course, can nothing about others and need to have a license to harm others in order to feel superior and better about themselves.  The irony is that Clarence Thomas - the dullard of SCOTUS - doesn't grasp that a reversal of Obergefell could set the stage for the reversal of Loving v. Virginia and the invalidation of his own marriage to a white woman. A piece in The New Republic looks at this disturbing development:

Same-sex marriage could soon be back on the Supreme Court docket. Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed in 2015 for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses, is appealing her case. Davis is appealing a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 for attorneys’ fees, reported ABC News Monday.

Davis claimed that her First Amendment rights protecting her religious freedom effectively immunized her from repercussions for denying the licenses.

“The mistake must be corrected,” Davis’s attorney Mathew Staver argued in the petition, further condemning Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges as “legal fiction.”

“This court should revisit and reverse Obergefell for the same reasons articulated in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center,” reads one titled portion, under which Staver claims that “Obergefell was wrong when it was decided and it is wrong today because it was grounded entirely on the legal fiction of substantive due process.”

Staver’s argument alluded to Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in Dobbs, which overturned the nationwide right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade. In his 2022 opinion, Thomas argued that the court “should reconsider” its substantive due process precedents, including contraception, same-sex marriage, and even same-sex relationships.

Gay marriage was effectively legalized in 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell that keeping marriage licenses from same-sex couples was discriminatory. The decision mandated that all states issue licenses to gay and lesbian couples, and required states to recognize marriages performed in other jurisdictions, as well.

Marriage equality was further protected at the federal level in 2022, when the Respect for Marriage Act became law, requiring all 50 states to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. It did not, however, formally legalize gay marriage, so if the Supreme Court were to take up Davis’s case and overturn Obergefell, gay marriage rights would fall with it.

Roughly 69 percent of Americans support same-sex marriages, according to a 2024 Gallup poll. Republican support for gay couples’ equal rights has dipped in recent years, however, from a record high of 55 percent in favor of it in 2021 to 46 percent in 2024.

Under Project 2025, only white, heterosexual, right wing "Christians" have rights and have a license to discriminate against others.