WASHINGTON (BP) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to revisit its 2015 ruling on same-sex marriage misses a chance to right the matter but doesn’t change God’s Word, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission Interim President Gary Hollingsworth told Baptist Press.
“At our annual meeting this summer, Southern Baptists passed a resolution encouraging lawmakers to address this issue, calling for the overturning of Obergefell and urging the passage of laws that ‘affirm marriage between one man and one woman,’” Hollingsworth said. “Unfortunately, in deciding not to hear this case, the court has passed up an opportunity to do so.
“Yet, it does not – and it cannot – undermine the truth about God’s design for marriage.”
The High Court declined Nov. 10 to hear an appeal in Miller v. Davis, in which former Rowan County, Ky., clerk Kim Davis was ordered to pay more than $360,000, including attorney fees, to a same-sex couple for whom she refused to issue a marriage license in 2015. Davis had asserted issuing such a license countered her biblically-based religious beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman.
On the table, though considered a longshot, was the possibility of the court overturning the Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalizing same-sex marriage, just as the justices overturned Roe v. Wade’s legalization of abortion. But despite the narrow Obergefell ruling of 5-4, only Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has since voiced a willingness to overturn the pivotal decision.
Southern Baptists have long believed marriage laws should reflect biblical truth that from the beginning, God established marriage as between one man and one woman, Hollingsworth said.
“As we consider this disappointment (of the court), let us remember that God is at work in marriages and families in our churches and all over our nation,” Hollingsworth said. “Let us pray that God’s good design would be displayed in these marriages and that the Lord would use them to point people to Christ and to be a source of flourishing in society.
“And let us also pray for the salvation of those who are blinded by the spirit of this age, that they too may believe and live according to the goodness of God’s design for gender and sexuality.”
Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex applicants after the Obergefell ruling, landing her in jail for five days for refusing a court order to issue such licenses. One couple, David Ermold and David Moore, sued. They were later issued a license and married that year. Since 2015, Kentucky has modified the law to allow marriage licenses without the county clerk’s name and signature.
When the court issued the Obergefell ruling, 425,000 same-sex couples had already wed in the U.S., and the national change led to a 55 percent increase in same-sex marriages by 2023, when the number reached 774,553, based on U.S. Census Bureau data as reported by Pew Research Center.
Southern Baptists succinctly state in Article 18 of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BF&M) a biblical case for God’s design for marriage, with scriptural support in Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5 and Ephesians 5:31.
“Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime,” the BF&M reads. “It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church, and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel for sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.”
The BF&M is available here in several languages.