**Supreme Court Declines to Overturn Nationwide Same-Sex Marriage Ruling**
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a call to overturn its landmark decision that legalized same-sex marriage across the United States. The justices, without comment, dismissed an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the high court’s 2015 ruling in *Obergefell v. Hodges*.
Davis was seeking to have the Court overturn a lower-court order requiring her to pay $360,000 in damages and attorney’s fees to a couple she denied a marriage license. Her lawyers repeatedly cited the opinions of Justice Clarence Thomas, who has called for reconsidering the same-sex marriage ruling. Thomas is one of four justices who dissented in 2015; Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both current members of the Court, also dissented.
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**Justice Scalia’s Dissent: Democracy and the Role of the Courts**
In his dissent in *Obergefell v. Hodges*, the late Justice Antonin Scalia emphasized concerns about the court’s authority and its impact on American democracy. Scalia wrote:
> “I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy. The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance.”
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> “Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me.”
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> “Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create ‘liberties’ that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention.”
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> “This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.”
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**Public Debate and the Power of the People**
Scalia argued that prior to the Court’s intervention, the issue of same-sex marriage was being resolved through democratic processes:
> “Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best. Individuals on both sides of the issue passionately, but respectfully, attempted to persuade their fellow citizens to accept their views. Americans considered the arguments and put the question to a vote. The electorates of 11 States, either directly or through their representatives, chose to expand the traditional definition of marriage. Many more decided not to.”
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> “Win or lose, advocates for both sides continued pressing their cases, secure in the knowledge that an electoral loss can be negated by a later electoral win. That is exactly how our system of government is supposed to work.”
Scalia further noted the Constitution establishes constraints on self-rule—those powers “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” can be exercised as desired, aside from specific limitations like freedom of speech or religion.
> “These cases ask us to decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment contains a limitation that requires the States to license and recognize marriages between two people of the same sex. Does it remove that issue from the political process? Of course not. It would be surprising to find a prescription regarding marriage in the Federal Constitution since, as the author of today’s opinion reminded us only two years ago (in an opinion joined by the same Justices who join him today).”
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**Conclusion**
Despite dissent from some justices and continued challenges in court, Monday’s Supreme Court action leaves the 2015 same-sex marriage decision intact, upholding marriage equality nationwide. The ongoing debate highlights fundamental questions about the role of the judiciary and the balance between constitutional interpretation and democratic governance.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/11/supreme-court-rejects-bid-overturn-decision-that-legalized/
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