Kim Davis (at right) is pictured here in 2015, when she served as Clerk of the Courts in Rowan County, Kentucky. Citing a sincere religious objection, Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. / Credit: Ty Wright/Getty ImagesWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 10, 2025 / 18:12 pm (CNA).The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined a request to overturn its 2015 decision to legalize same-sex marriage. Kim Davis, a Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk from 2015 through 2019, petitioned the Supreme Court in July to reconsider the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which legalized same-sex civil marriages nationally.Davis requested the court also hear her case 10 years later after she made headlines for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She served multiple days in jail for contempt of court for violating a judicial order to issue the marriage licenses.Davis was ordered to pay more than $360,000 in damages and...
Kim Davis (at right) is pictured here in 2015, when she served as Clerk of the Courts in Rowan County, Kentucky. Citing a sincere religious objection, Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. / Credit: Ty Wright/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 10, 2025 / 18:12 pm (CNA).
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined a request to overturn its 2015 decision to legalize same-sex marriage.
Kim Davis, a Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk from 2015 through 2019, petitioned the Supreme Court in July to reconsider the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which legalized same-sex civil marriages nationally.
Davis requested the court also hear her case 10 years later after she made headlines for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She served multiple days in jail for contempt of court for violating a judicial order to issue the marriage licenses.
Davis was ordered to pay more than $360,000 in damages and legal fees for violating a same-sex couples' right to marry. After lower courts rejected her claim that the the Constitution's First Amendment right to free exercise of religion protected her in the case, she appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Trump administration did not weigh in on the case as the Supreme Court considered whether to take up the matter. The Supreme Court made the decision to reject the request on Nov. 10 and has made no comment on the matter.
The issue with claiming violation to religious freedom is that Davis "was not acting as a private citizen, exercising her right to … religion, she was acting as a public official," said Thomas Jipping, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
"The First Amendment applies differently with regard to the actions of public officials than private individuals," said Jipping in a Nov. 10 interview with "EWTN News Nightly." Davis "was acting in her official capacity as a county clerk, and that's a very different legal question."
Jipping said Davis' situation was not the "right case" to reach the Supreme Court and reverse Obergefell v. Hodges because it was not a case in which someone challenged a state legislature's law in conflict with the precedent.
Mary Rice Hasson, Kate O'Beirne senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told CNA she agreed the case was not the right vehicle to reconsider the Obergefell decision.
"As Catholics, our energies will be better spent explaining and promoting the truth about marriage and sexuality to our children and fellow Catholics rather than hoping for a reversal of Obergefell," Hasson said.
Many American Catholics support the legalization of same-sex civil marriages at about the same rate as the broader population. According to a 2024 Pew poll, about 70% of self-identified Catholics said they support same-sex marriage, which was slightly higher than the population as a whole.
Hasson said: "It's a scandal that 70% of self-described Catholics support so-called same-sex 'marriage.'"
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: "The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator."
Pope Leo XIV blesses a baby in St. Peter's Square during his general audience on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican MediaACI Prensa Staff, Nov 10, 2025 / 18:32 pm (CNA).The Vatican has revealed the names of Pope Leo XIV's favorite films, including "The Sound of Music" and "It's a Wonderful Life," upon announcing the Holy Father's upcoming meeting with the world of cinema on Saturday, Nov. 15.In total, the Vatican shared four titles of the "most significant films" for Leo XIV:'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946) by Frank CapraThe Christmas classic stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has sacrificed his dreams because of his sense of responsibility and generosity but feeling like a failure, he contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve. This prompts the intervention of his guardian angel (Henry Travers), who shows him all the good he has done for many people. 'The Sound of Music' (1965) by Robert WiseThe film tells the story of a postulant at a conven...
The fresco of St. Leo the Great, doctor of the Church, in the cupola of the Church of St. Maximus of Turin, Italy. / Credit: Renata Sedmakova/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 10, 2025 / 13:25 pm (CNA).Throughout the last two millennia, the Catholic Church has only granted the title "doctor of the Church" to 38 saints, one of whom we celebrate today on Nov. 10: St. Leo the Great, the 45th bishop of Rome. Pope Leo I, who was the first pope to be remembered posthumously as "the great," began his papacy in 440 and served until his death in 461. During his pontificate, he worked to clarify doctrines related to Christ's human and divine natures.The pontiff was a "pope-theologian, but he's also known as a remarkable bishop," Thomas Clemmons, a professor of Church history at The Catholic University of America, told CNA, adding that "theologian popes are rare."St. Leo's papacy began nine years after the Council of Ephesus, which condemned Nestorius and the heresy of Nesto...
Pope Leo XIV addresses pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square for his Sunday Angelus on Nov. 9, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican MediaVatican City, Nov 10, 2025 / 16:06 pm (CNA).Pope Leo XIV warned Monday that artificial intelligence could exacerbate "antihuman ideologies" in medicine as Catholic doctors and moral theologians raise alarms about the future of AI in health care.In a message on Nov. 10 to an international congress on "Artificial Intelligence and Medicine: The Challenge of Human Dignity," hosted by the Pontifical Academy for Life, the pope said that ensuring "true progress" in medicine depends on keeping the dignity of every human at the forefront."It is easy to recognize the destructive potential of technology and even medical research when they are placed at the service of antihuman ideologies," Leo XIV said.Leo added that those responsible for integrating AI into medicine must remember that "health care professionals have the vocation and respo...
Kim Davis (at right) is pictured here in 2015, when she served as Clerk of the Courts in Rowan County, Kentucky. Citing a sincere religious objection, Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. / Credit: Ty Wright/Getty Images
