Major denomination calls on high court to overturn same-sex marriage decision

A resolution has been adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant group in America, that seeks the reversal of the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in which a single-vote majority created without a link to the U.S. Constitution the “right” to same-sex marriage across the nation.

A resolution, “On Restoring Moral Clarity through God’s Design for Gender, Marriage, and the Family,” calls for the overturning of “laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God’s design for marriage and family.”

It seeks “laws that affirm marriage between one man and one woman, recognize the biological reality of male and female, protect children’s innocence against sexual predation, affirm and strengthen parental rights in education and healthcare, incentivize family formation in life-affirming ways, and ensure safety and fairness in athletic competition.”

The Supreme Court, at the time it unleashed the stunning creation of rights not mentioned in the Constitution, admitted it was unrelated to America’s founding document. The minority on the court, taking a more conservative position, warned, too, that the ruling, even though it “recognized” the rights of Americans to not support the alternative sexual lifestyle choice, would be used to attack Christians in America, which it has.

For example, officials in just one state, Colorado, have gone to the Supreme Court twice already trying to impose a state-adopted religious belief, which is anti-Christian, on its residents.

Officials there, led by homosexual Gov. Jared Polis, first tried to punish a Christian baker for declining to promote anti-Christian beliefs with his work. The state lost at the Supreme Court, and got scolded for its “hostility” to Christianity. The same thing happened when Colorado officials tried to force a Christian web designer to promote anti-Christian religious beliefs with her work.

Incredibly, officials in that state, after costing taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees for their ideological warfare, have gone to the Supreme Court yet a third time, this time trying to impose their religious beliefs on every counselor in the state.

The support for overturning Obergefell has been developing every since it was released, and, in fact, there’s a court fight already in the pipeline that justices on the bench, now far more conservative than in 2015 when radicals like Ruth Ginsburg were in control, could use to overturn it.

That case involves former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis.

She refrained from issuing any marriage licenses under her name for a short time after the Obergefell opinion, as the ruling infringed on her religious beliefs. She asked for and eventually got an accommodation, but not before a biased federal judge excoriated her for having her Christian faith and sent her to jail.

She later was sued by two same-sex duos for “damages” when she didn’t immediately grant them licenses. One jury awarded $50,000 in damages to both David Ermold and David Moore for “emotional distress” based on “hurt feelings,” while the other jury considering the same facts announced there was no evidence of damages.

While Davis’ case now is being presented to the Supreme Court, a ruling from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals already has confirmed it is “a case of ‘first impression,’ where a question regarding an interpretation of the law that has never arisen before is first presented to the court.”

Liberty Counsel is representing Davis, and said, “The 6th Circuit affirmed the jury verdict against her, but did so in a way that provides Davis with excellent grounds to appeal the decision to the full 6th Circuit and ultimately the Supreme Court of the United States.

“On appeal, Davis argued that she was entitled to First Amendment protections in her position as county clerk, and that the jury was prohibited from issuing any damage award against her. According to legal precedent, the First Amendment prohibits imposing liability on an individual for the exercise of their sincerely held religious beliefs. While most of the cases … establishing this position were based on the Free Speech Clause, there is no reason to make a distinction between the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses for this purpose,” the legal team explained.

The court claimed, “Writing on this blank slate, we are wise to tread lightly. To that end, the fact-specific nature of our holding again bears emphasis: a government employee, acting in the scope of that employment, does not have a unilateral free exercise right to use an arm of the state to infringe on a clearly established equal protection right of the public. Change the factual setting, and a free exercise defense to a civil rights lawsuit may have more traction. It is always the case that ‘[a] later court assessing a past decision must . . . appreciate the possibility that different facts and different legal arguments may dictate a different outcome.’”

That decision, now on appeal, threatened that government officials lose their conscience protections when they are government officials.

Liberty Counsel explained, “The court found that the 2015 Obergefell 5-4 opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court decided on Friday, June 26, 2015, ‘clearly established’ that Davis as the Rowan County Clerk in Kentucky must issue licenses to same sex couples when she commenced work on Monday, June 29. The problem with this ruling, however, is that Davis’ function is totally defined by state law. To issue a license to someone not authorized to receive one under state law could subject Davis to criminal prosecution.”

At the time of the Obergefell ruling, same-sex marriage was illegal in many states.

Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel chief, said the reason Obergefell must fall is that the decision “threatens the religious liberty of many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman. The First Amendment precludes making the choice between your faith and your livelihood.”

The legal team previously has noted the path to overturning Obergefell could follow the same path as that was used to overturn Roe: that the Constitution does not even mention same-sex marriage and thus, under the Constitution, the issue must be left to states.

The pro-marriage Mass Resistance organization said, “The Obergefell v. Hodges ruling was passed by a slim 5-4 majority of activist Supreme Court Justices. It has caused immense societal havoc across the country. States have been forced to ignore their legitimate laws and constitutional amendments regarding marriage. Governments, businesses, and even schoolchildren have been forced to accept same-sex ‘marriage’ – and by extension homosexual behavior – as normal, under pain of punishments, fines, and even imprisonment.”

The problem with that ruling?

“The First Amendment guarantees free speech, freedom of assembly, religious liberty, and the right to petition government for redress of grievance. By forcing same-sex ‘marriage’ on the country in this way, Obergefell challenged all those rights,” the group reported.

“In order to invent a previously unknown constitutional ‘right’ to same-sex marriage, the 5-4 majority of activist Supreme Court Justices used a strategy concocted by the LGBT lawyers. They redefined the Fourteenth Amendment to allow them to effectively change the definition of marriage from one man and one woman to ‘two people who love each other,’” the group reported.

But the 14th Amendment actually states: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” and does not mention marriage.

The Obergefell promoters at the time also cited “substantive due process,” which is not in the Constitution, a maneuver that was caught by Justice Clarence Thomas, who said that use in Obergefell, like Roe, “is faulty, and a basis for revisiting those cases.”

He said, “We should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”

The decision was biased because two justices, Ruth Ginsberg and Elena Kagan, who joined in creating the new right, already had officiated at same-sex weddings, indicating they had a clear bias in favor.

In fact, WND later reported that the Davis case got a “Told you so,” from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after the high court declined to review one issue of the attacks on Davis.

In a statement then, Thomas said Davis “may have been one of the first victims” of the Supreme Court’s “cavalier treatment of religion” when it issued its same-sex marriage ruling, “but she will not be the last.”

Thomas called Davis a “devout Christian” who “found herself faced with a choice between her religious beliefs and her job.”

“Due to Obergefell, those with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage will find it increasingly difficult to participate in society without running afoul of Obergefell and its effect on other antidiscrimination laws,” Thomas wrote. “Moreover, Obergefell enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss.”

Thomas said, “Several members of the court noted that the court’s decision would threaten the religious liberty of the many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman. If the states had been allowed to resolve this question through legislation, they could have included accommodations for those who hold these religious beliefs. The court, however, bypassed that democratic process. Worse still, though it briefly acknowledged that those with sincerely held religious objections to same-sex marriage are often ‘decent and honorable’ … the court went on to suggest that those beliefs espoused a bigoted worldview…”

Breaking News: Southern Baptists voted to call for the reversal of the Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage, spurred by the end of Roe v. Wade. https://t.co/uRHeFbfnBa

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 10, 2025

The Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution supporting a concerted effort to reverse Obergefell v. Hodges as the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage approaches its 10-year anniversary. https://t.co/Zb8bH7GiUf

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) June 10, 2025