The Supreme Court is looking into taking up a case that could result in a fairly recent, major precedent-setting decision being overturned.

Next month, the justices will consider an appeal from Kim Davis, a former county clerk whose prior refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses led to the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that legalized gay marriage across the nation, according to Deseret News.

In addition to seeking the high court's intervention in a separate but related lawsuit against her, Davis has also urged the justices to use the opportunity to overturn Obergefell, which she insists was wrongly decided and unconstitutional.

Kim Davis is back at the Supreme Court

More than a decade ago, then-Kentucky County Clerk Davis sparked a nationwide controversy when, citing her religious beliefs, she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples -- a move that ultimately landed her briefly in jail and subjected her to a lawsuit from one rejected gay couple that she is still fighting against.

In that suit, she was hit with a ruling for $100,000 in emotional damages to the couple and $260,000 in attorney's fees, which she unsuccessfully appealed to the Sixth Circuit earlier this year.

In July, in a case known as Davis v. Ermold, Davis petitioned the Supreme Court to intervene on her behalf and settle several disputed issues at play in the suit.

That includes whether the First Amendment-protected free exercise of religion right can be used as a defense against certain tort liabilities, and if so, whether a government official sued in their individual capacity can use that defense the same way an individual citizen would.

Davis also asked the justices to reconsider and overturn the Obergefell decision, which created the "legal fiction of substantive due process" just one decade ago.

Case scheduled for conference

According to SCOTUSblog, it was revealed this week that Davis' petition to the Supreme Court has been scheduled for consideration for the first time by the justices during their next closed-door conference on Friday, November 7.

Traditionally, cases aren't taken up until after they've been considered in two separate conferences -- though they can be immediately rejected -- and only then will a case be added to the docket if four or more justices vote in favor of hearing it.

Furthermore, even if Davis' case is accepted and added to the docket, that doesn't necessarily mean that the Court will address all of the questions raised, much less that at least five justices are prepared to overturn a precedent that many of them helped establish just 10 years ago.

Concern that Obergefell could be overturned

In 2015, in a 5-4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court determined that the Constitution's 14th Amendment's Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses guaranteed same-sex couples the same right to get married as heterosexual couples -- a right that, until then, had differed depending upon the particular state a couple lived in.

Notably, three of the four dissenting votes -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito -- are still on the court, compared to just two of the five concurring votes -- Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan -- with the remainder all having died or retired since then.

Now, with a more solidly conservative-leaning court majority, there is a push from some on the right and suspicions from many on the left that, much in the way that the 2022 Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and relegated the abortion issue to the individual states, the right to same-sex marriage could be revisited and similarly sent back down to the states.