Ten years ago ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v Hodges that Americans have a constitutional right to same sex-marriage.

While that decision was celebrated by Democrats, a recent attempt to overturn it has left them furious. 

Appeal filed with the Supreme Court by former county clerk

Among the critics is Columbia University Law School professor Suzanne B. Goldberg, who was criticized the move in an op-ed piece published last week by MSNBC.

Goldberg pointed to former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, was jailed for six days in 2015 after she refused to provide a marriage license to a gay Kentucky couple on religious grounds.

The case ultimately ended with the Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell while Davis was personally sued, with a jury awarding $100,000 damages to the plaintiffs along with $260,000 worth of attorneys fees.

However, ABC News reported that Davis has filed a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court which argues that the 14th Amendment's religious freedom protections negate her judgment.

Further Davis asserts that the Supreme Court's interpretation of the 14th Amendment's due process provision was "egregiously wrong."

Davis points to landmark abortion ruling

Goldberg noted how Davis cites "plenty of quotes from the Obergefell dissents, with special attention to Chief Justice John Roberts, who said that the court had overstepped its role and that the marriage ruling 'had no basis in the Constitution.'"

Yet the former official's "core theme is that Obergefell should be tied to the coattails of the court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which withdrew a half-century of constitutional protection for abortion."

Nevertheless, Goldberg voiced skepticism regarding this approach, highlighting the text of Justice Samuel Alito majority opinion in Dobbs.

"'To ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right,' and that '[n]othing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,'" Alito wrote.

Goldberg calls Davis' claims "thin and weak"

In addition to Alito's words, Goldberg also pointed to the concurring opinion which Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored in Dobbs.

Kavanaugh alluded to Obergefell along with other other substantive cases which implicated substantive due process, asserting that the Dobbs decision did "not threaten or cast doubt on those precedents."

As she drew to a close, Goldberg characterized Davis' as being "thin and weak in its claims" before predicting that it will likely be "just one of thousands of Supreme Court petitions likely to be denied in the coming term."