The Supreme Court has been asked to reconsider its landmark ruling Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized gay marriage nationwide more than a decade ago.
The long-shot request was made by Kim Davis, the former Kentucky clerk who gained notoriety after she was jailed for refusing marriage licenses in the aftermath of the court's ruling. She was sued by a gay couple and ordered to pay $100,00 in emotional damages, plus $260,000 for attorneys fees.
"If there ever was a case of exceptional importance," her lawyer Matthew Staver wrote, "the first individual in the Republic's history who was jailed for following her religious convictions regarding the historic definition of marriage, this should be it."
In her petition to the Supreme Court, Davis argues that Obergefell was based on a "legal fiction" and that it has eroded the First Amendment's protections of religious freedom.
"The damage done by Obergefell’s distortion of the Constitution is reason enough to overturn this opinion and reaffirm the rule of law and the proper role of this Court," the petition says.
The appeal quotes from the conservative justices, who warned at the time of the Obergefell ruling that the court had bypassed a democratic debate to overturn centuries of tradition on marriage and the family.
Chief Justice John Roberts called the decision an "act of will, not legal judgment" that proclaimed a new right with "no basis in the Constitution."
Justice Samuel Alito, who has continued to criticize the decision, said the post-Obergefell world would be one in which religious believers will "whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes."
"But if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools," he wrote.
Davis is urging the Supreme Court to send the issue back to the states, citing the Dobbs decision, which ended Roe v. Wade, as an example of the justices overturning an erroneous precedent. Legal analysts are skeptical that the request will go far, however.
An appeals court shut Davis down earlier this year, finding she is not protected by the First Amendment because she is "being held liable for state action."
Davis may get a friendlier hearing from the Supreme Court, which has moved to the right over the past decade. Some of the court's justices have expressed interest in revisiting the contentious gay marriage ruling, namely Alito and Clarence Thomas.
In her petition, Davis cites Thomas' concurrence in Dobbs, in which he urged the court to "reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell."
On the right, the defense of traditional marriage has long been relegated to the past, but some continue to view Obergefell as a mistake that led America down a path of moral confusion, setting the stage for the transgender movement that later swept the country.
While most Americans have come to regard the issue as settled, support for gay marriage has declined among Republicans, dropping from a high of 55% to 41% this year - and a handful of Republican states have publicly called on the Supreme Court to throw out its Obergefell ruling.
