Petitioners Asking High Court to Reverse their Decision on Same Sex Marriage
In 2022, the Supreme Court heard the infamous case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The official title is the case decided by the Supreme Court, striking down Roe v. Wade and sending the question of abortion back to the individual states. Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”
If the Supreme Court was incorrect in demanding abortion as a right for over fifty years, contributing to countless deaths, then it seems logical that they could be wrong on other rulings. Alito, predicting the argument, wanted to keep the lid of Pandora’s box closed. He said, “Our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” Alito’s comment is shortsighted at best and is inconsistent with determining whether an issue is constitutional.
Justice Thomas disagreed with Alito that the Fourteenth Amendment has “no substantive, unenumerated rights or protected by the Due Process Clause.” Importantly, he noted, “The Supreme Court should reconsider and overturn any prior constitutional decision that is ‘demonstrably erroneous.’” Thomas’s comments make much more sense than Alito’s opinion, which tries to make an exception for Roe v. Wade but not for any other case. There is a challenge that abortion is not a singular, unique question. Petitioners are seeking a hearing from the Supreme Court on their previous ruling on the constitutionality of same sex marriage, citing the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law.
Years ago, a Kentucky clerk, Kim Davis, refused to give a same-sex couple a marriage license due to her religious beliefs that only a man and a woman can enter into marriage. She was jailed for six days and incurred substantial financial burdens in fines and attorney fees. It appears her protection of equal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment was not considered.
Obergefell v. Hodges was a case brought to the Supreme Court in 2015. Based on the equal rights argument, the outcome is that same-sex couples have the right to marry in every state of the union, which is now the law of the land. However, there is a wrinkle.
Before the Obergefell decision, 26 states had the definition of marriage between a man and a woman in their constitutions, while 30 other states banned same sex marriage by statute. The 2015 decision of the Supreme Court nullified all of these provisions, and the states are mandated under federal law to permit these unions.
This may all change, like the question of abortion, which empowers states to decide. A new petition to overrule Obergefell has recently been presented to the Court for review. Attorney Matthew Staver sought the Supreme Court on behalf of Kim Davis (the only one with legal standing in a case like this) to overturn Obergefell and return marriage regulations to the states. Staver noted that Davis is “the first individual in the Republic’s history who was jailed for following her religious convictions regarding the historic definition of marriage, this should be it.”
The Supreme Court has not decided whether it will hear the case brought by Davis and her attorney, but it should. The previously ruling squashed many states and their citizens ‘ right to define marriage as it has been for millennia. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution mentions marriage between a man and a woman. It didn’t need to, because the question is not of human law but a divine mandate.
If there is any consistency in the law, and there should be for justice’s sake, then the Court must take up this case and decide as they did with Dobbs, sending the definition of marriage back to the states where it belongs.
We will monitor this case, but in the meantime, we pray that the request for reconsideration is granted.