As the United States Supreme Court prepares to open its 2025-26 term this October, the question of marriage equality is once again looming large in the national conversation. For many same-sex couples, this resurgence of debate has triggered a deep sense of uncertainty about their futures, echoing fears many thought had been laid to rest a decade ago.
On August 17, 2025, CTV News captured the mood of anxiety rippling through the LGBTQ+ community in its report, "Gay couple weighs uncertain future as debate over marriage equality resurfaces." The article highlighted how renewed legal and political challenges are forcing couples to consider the security of their marriages and the rights they once believed were settled.
This unease is not unfounded. The spark reigniting the debate comes from a fresh petition filed with the Supreme Court by Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who, in 2015, famously refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples following the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision. Davis, who spent six days in jail for contempt of court, is now seeking to overturn a $360,000 judgment against her for damages and legal fees, claiming her First Amendment rights were violated. More significantly, she is urging the Court to revisit and overturn Obergefell itself, calling the ruling "egregiously wrong," as reported by USA TODAY.
The possibility that the Supreme Court might take up Davis’s petition is not as far-fetched as some would hope. The Court has already asked David Moore and David Ermold, the couple denied a license by Davis, to respond to her appeal—a procedural move that suggests genuine consideration. And, as USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño points out, three of the original dissenters from the Obergefell case—Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Samuel Alito—remain on the bench.
Justice Thomas, in particular, has been vocal about his desire to see Obergefell reconsidered. According to Marshall H. Tanick, writing for USA TODAY on August 17, 2025, Thomas called for the Court to "reconsider" the marriage equality decision in a 2022 concurring opinion during the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, which itself overturned the long-standing abortion rights precedent of Roe v. Wade. Thomas’s opinion went further, suggesting the Court should also review precedents protecting contraception and same-sex intimacy between consenting adults, raising alarm bells for advocates of civil liberties.
The legal landscape has shifted in other ways as well. In the past year, nine states have enacted legislation or resolutions directly challenging the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling, a trend mirrored by the Southern Baptist Convention’s formal call for the decision to be overturned. As USA TODAY notes, resolutions in five states sought to prompt the Court to review Obergefell, with Idaho and North Dakota’s proposals passing their respective Houses before failing in the Senate. While these efforts have not (yet) changed the law, they underscore a growing determination among some Republican lawmakers and conservative groups to curtail or eliminate same-sex marriage rights.
Public opinion, once a bulwark for marriage equality, has shown signs of softening. A May 2025 Gallup poll cited by USA TODAY found that support for same-sex marriage remains a majority at 68%, but that figure has dropped from a high of 71% in 2023. The decline is most pronounced among Republicans, whose support has fallen from 55% to just over 40% in recent years, according to Marshall H. Tanick.
Should the Supreme Court agree to hear the Davis case, four justices must consent—a threshold that appears likely given the current composition of the Court. As Tanick observes, "The votes of Justices Thomas and Alito seem to be locks, and at least two or three of the appointees of President Trump would be inclined to join them. Even Chief Justice Roberts, one of the four dissenters in the Obergefell case might agree as he blasted the ruling as having 'no basis in the Constitution.'" If the case is added to the docket, a decision could come as soon as 2026, and it would take just five votes to overturn the precedent.
The consequences of such a reversal would be profound. According to Tanick, more than 1.5 million Americans, including over 60,000 Floridians, are currently in same-sex marriages. While the marriages themselves might not be retroactively invalidated, the ability for future couples to marry would be thrown into doubt in the 32 states that still have constitutional or legislative bans on marriage equality. As Pequeño warns, "If the Obergefell ruling were overturned tomorrow, same-sex marriage would become illegal in 32 states that have constitutional and/or legislative bans on marriage equality. This would affect more than half of the LGBTQ+ people in the United States."
There is, however, a legal backstop: the Respect for Marriage Act, passed in 2022, requires both the federal government and all states to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages. This means that marriages performed in states where they remain legal would still be acknowledged nationwide. Yet, as Pequeño notes, "the loss of the 2015 Supreme Court ruling would affect future generations of LGBTQ+ people looking to get married." The Respect for Marriage Act cannot compel states to issue new marriage licenses if Obergefell is overturned, leaving many couples in legal limbo and reigniting the patchwork of rights that existed before 2015.
Legal experts are divided on whether the Court will ultimately take the case or overturn Obergefell. Robbie Kaplan, who argued for LGBTQ+ rights before the Supreme Court in 2013, told Axios (as quoted by USA TODAY), "It's not just a recipe for administrative chaos. It also would result in an almost indescribable amount of (needless) suffering and heartache." Still, as Pequeño reflects, "I’m skeptical that the very court that sent abortion rights back to the states cares about the legal complications that a ruling like this could cause."
For same-sex couples across America, the renewed debate is more than a legal technicality—it is a deeply personal reminder that hard-won rights remain vulnerable to shifting political tides and judicial philosophies. The anxiety is palpable, as CTV News reported, with many couples weighing their options and considering what the future might hold if the Supreme Court reopens the question of marriage equality.
As the new Supreme Court term approaches, all eyes will be on the justices and the fate of Obergefell. For now, the debate serves as a stark reminder that, in the words of Sara Pequeño, "the rights we fought for years to gain can be reversed, that all it takes is a conservative shift in government to send us back to a time before legal gay marriage."
