Kim Davis: Who is the woman at the centre of efforts to overturn same-sex marriage?

The US Supreme Court is deciding whether to hear a case presented by former county clerk Kim Davis, asking it to overturn the landmark ruling that legalised same-sex marriage throughout the US 10 years ago.

On Friday 26 June 2015, the court narrowly decided in the case of Obergefell vs. Hodges that marriage was a constitutional right for all Americans.

It was a decision which paved the way for same-sex marriage ceremonies to be performed in all 50 states, including those that had banned queer unions.

The Supreme Court verdict, carried by five votes to four, ruled the bans to be unconstitutional.

LGBTQ+ rights activist Jim Obergefell was the lead plaintiff in the case. His legal battle began in 2013 after his home state of Ohio refused to recognise his marriage to his terminally ill partner John Arthur, whom he had married in Maryland, which had legalised same-sex marriage at the beginning of the year.

However, the couple were told Obergefell could not be listed as Arthur’s surviving spouse on his death certificate because of Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage. The pair filed a lawsuit and the judge in the case, which became known as Obergefell vs. Kasich, ruled in their favour.

However, Ohio officials lodged and won an appeal, forcing Obergefell to take the case up to the Supreme Court.

Associate justice Anthony Kennedy writing in the majority opinion at the time of the Supreme Court’s decision, said: “They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The constitution grants them that right.”

Ten years on, the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law published a report showing that there are now more than 800,000 same-sex married couples in the US, double the number in 2015.

However, the study highlighted that 31 states still have dormant statutes and/or constitutional amendments in place that ban marriage equality, with around 433,000 married same-sex couples and 305,000 unmarried same-sex couples living in those areas. These were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court so cannot be enforced.

It is these couples who would be most vulnerable if the Supreme Court ruling was reversed.

So, who is Kim Davis?

In 2015 – despite the court’s decision – Davis, a clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky at the time, refused to issue marriage licences to queer couples, claiming that doing so would violate her Christian beliefs about “God’s definition of marriage”.

Gay couple David Ermold and David Moore filmed Davis refusing to issue their licence and telling them they would have to go to “surrounding counties” instead. The video quickly went viral and sparked outrage.

Davis subsequently denied licences to all couples, so as not to be seen as discriminating against those in same-sex relationships.

Four couples, only two of whom were LGBTQ+, sued Davis, with support from the American Civil Liberties Union.  She was jailed for five days for contempt of court for refusing to issue the licences, and was released after her staff issued the documents but removed her name from the forms.

In 2018, Davis sought re-election as county clerk. In the run-up to polling, Ermold, who had been denied a marriage licence, ran in the Democratic primary to challenge her but lost to Elwood Caudill Jr.

Initially elected as a Democrat, Davis now stood as a Republican. But she too was beaten by civil servant Caudill – by 644 votes.

In 2019, a court decided that Ermold and Moore could sue Davis for damages.

District judge David Bunning ruled in March 2022 that Davis had violated the couples’ constitutional rights by refusing to give them marriage licences.

Some 18 months later Ermold and Moore were both awarded $50,00 (approximately £62,000 at the time), and in January 2024 Davis was ordered to pay more than $260,000 (then close to £333,000) for the men’s legal fees and expenses.

Davis is now seeking $100,00 (£74,000) for emotional damages and $260,000 (now worth about £193,000) in legal fees.

In a petition filed with the Supreme Court last month, her lawyer Mat Staver said: “Obergefell was egregiously wrong, deeply damaging, far outside the bound of any reasonable interpretation of the various constitutional provisions to which it vaguely pointed [and set out] on a collision course with the constitution from the day it was decided.

“This flawed opinion has produced disastrous results, leaving individuals like Davis find[ing] it increasingly difficult to participate in society without running [foul] of Obergefell and its effect on other anti-discrimination laws, and, until the court revisits its ‘creation of atextual constitutional rights,’ Obergefell will continue to have ruinous consequences for religious liberty.”

Speaking to Newsweek, Staver said it was time to “re-evaluate [Obergefell vs. Hodges] and overturn it”. He went on to claim he original ruling was “weak on shaky ground”.

William Powell, Ermold and Moore’s lawyer, expressed confidence the Supreme Court would not take up Davis’ case.

“We are confident the Supreme Court, like the Court of Appeals, will conclude that Davis’ arguments do not merit further attention,” he said. “Marriage equality is settled law.”

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