As the United States Supreme Court weighs whether to take up a case that could challenge the landmark 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has issued a stark warning to LGBTQ+ couples: consider getting married while you still can. Her comments come amid a swirl of legal uncertainty, political maneuvering, and rising anxiety within the LGBTQ+ community, as the nation revisits a debate many thought was settled a decade ago.
At the heart of the current controversy is Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who made national headlines in 2015 when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, defying the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision. Davis spent six days in jail for her refusal and is now appealing a $100,000 jury award for emotional damages and $260,000 in legal fees. Her latest petition to the Supreme Court marks the first time the justices have been formally asked to reconsider the Obergefell ruling, according to Newsweek and ABC News.
Clinton, speaking on the Raging Moderates podcast and in interviews with Fox News’ Jessica Tarlov, drew a direct parallel between the current threat to marriage equality and the 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade. “It took 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court will hear a case about gay marriage. My prediction is they will do to gay marriage what they did to abortion. They will send it back to the states,” she warned. Clinton’s message to the LGBTQ+ community was unequivocal: “Anybody in a committed relationship out there in the LGBTQ community, you ought to consider getting married. ’Cause I don’t think they’ll undo existing marriages, but I fear that they will undo the national right.”
The stakes are high. If the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell, the legality of same-sex marriage would once again become a matter for individual states to decide. Before the 2015 ruling, 37 states and Washington, D.C. had legalized same-sex marriage, while others maintained bans. The resulting legal patchwork left countless couples in limbo, uncertain of their rights and recognition as they crossed state lines. As Clinton put it, “Fewer than half of the states will recognize gay marriage” if Obergefell falls.
Yet, the landscape has shifted since 2015. In 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law, a bipartisan measure designed to shore up marriage rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s shifting stance on personal liberties. The Act requires every state to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages legally performed elsewhere, even if their own laws prohibit them. However, as legal experts told LGBTQ Nation, this does not entirely resolve the issue. The Act prevents states from invalidating existing marriages but does not guarantee that new same-sex marriages can be performed everywhere if Obergefell is overturned. Moreover, the Act’s durability depends on the political winds in Congress and the courts.
Public opinion, too, is evolving but not uniformly. A May 2025 Gallup poll found that support for marriage equality remains at historic highs overall, yet Republican support has dipped to 41 percent, the lowest in a decade. In a separate June survey, 56 percent of Republican respondents still voiced support for same-sex marriage rights, indicating a complex and shifting political landscape.
Not everyone in the legal world shares Clinton’s sense of imminent crisis. Legal experts interviewed by LGBTQ Nation argue that while the Supreme Court could chip away at LGBTQ+ rights using religious liberty and free speech arguments, it is unlikely to outright overturn Obergefell in the immediate future. Chris Geidner, publisher of Law Dork, noted that the Supreme Court receives about 10,000 petitions annually but hears only 75 to 85 cases. “At least four Supreme Court justices would have to agree to hear such a case before the court would take it up,” he said, adding that Davis’s case is unlikely to meet that threshold.
Attorney William Powell, who represents the couple that sued Kim Davis in 2015, expressed confidence that the Supreme Court will reject Davis’s appeal. “Not a single judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals showed any interest in Davis’ rehearing petition, and we are confident the Supreme Court will likewise agree that Davis’ arguments do not merit further attention,” Powell told ABC News.
Still, the mood among many LGBTQ+ advocates is one of vigilance. Jim Obergefell, the original plaintiff in the case that bears his name, told The Cincinnati Inquirer in June 2025, “We have two sitting Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who said they want to overturn Obergefell… 10 years after the decision, I never thought I would be worried about marriage equality continuing as a right in our nation… We have state legislatures passing resolutions urging the court to overturn the case… because there are people who refuse to let it lie.”
Indeed, Justices Thomas and Alito have both voiced opposition to Obergefell. In a 2022 statement, Thomas argued that the same legal reasoning used to overturn federal abortion rights could be applied to marriage equality. Alito, in a five-page statement last winter, warned of the “danger” that Americans with traditional religious beliefs about homosexuality would be “labeled as bigots and treated as such” by the government, according to Yahoo News.
While some legal analysts like Joseph Mark Stern caution that panic over an immediate reversal of marriage equality may be overblown, they warn of a more insidious threat: the erosion of civil protections for LGBTQ+ people under the guise of religious liberty and free speech. “The biggest realistic threat to gay rights isn’t outright reversal of Obergefell, but the ongoing abridgment of gay equality in the name of religious liberty and free speech,” Stern wrote, highlighting recent Supreme Court decisions that have expanded First Amendment protections for those who oppose same-sex marriage.
If the Supreme Court were to overturn Obergefell, the resulting legal chaos could be profound. According to Jenny Pizer, chief legal officer of Lambda Legal, the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution requires states to respect the public acts and records of other states. Yet, inconsistent marriage laws could create confusion for couples, businesses, and government agencies alike. Some states might refuse to recognize marriages performed elsewhere, igniting a new wave of legal battles.
The Respect for Marriage Act offers some guardrails, but its protections are not absolute. If Republicans were to gain control of the Senate and repeal the Act, or if the Supreme Court were to reinterpret its provisions, the patchwork of state bans and protections could once again leave same-sex couples vulnerable to discrimination and uncertainty. Legal experts urge state and local governments to bolster their own protections, repealing outdated bans and enacting new shield laws to safeguard LGBTQ+ rights.
Public figures have not shied away from weighing in. Andy Cohen, executive producer of the Real Housewives franchise, took a swipe at Kim Davis on his talk show, highlighting the personal contradictions of those seeking to restrict others’ right to marry. “Lady, you’ve been married four times to three different people, reportedly getting pregnant with husband number three while still married to husband number one,” Cohen quipped, underscoring the personal nature of this political battle.
For now, all eyes remain on the Supreme Court. Whether the justices will take up Davis’s case, and what they might decide if they do, remains uncertain. But as Clinton’s warning reverberates across the country, same-sex couples are left to weigh their options in an atmosphere of renewed uncertainty—one that few expected to face again so soon after Obergefell.
