Hillary Clinton warns Supreme Court could overturn same-sex marriage ruling
Hillary Clinton is warning that the Supreme Court could dismantle its landmark ruling that legalized same-sex marriage, urging LGBTQ couples to get married before it happens. Clinton made the remarks to Fox News host Jessica Tarlov on “Raging Moderates,” a podcast hosted by Tarlov and Scott Galloway.
Clinton’s warning
“American voters, and to some extent the American media, don’t understand how many years the Republicans have been working in order to get us to this point,” Clinton said. “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.”
“Anybody in a committed relationship out there in the LGBTQ community, you ought to consider getting married, because I don’t think they’ll undo existing marriages, but I fear they will undo the national right,” she added.
What’s driving the concern
Clinton’s remarks come as the Court faces a new request to revisit Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 ruling that legalized gay marriage nationwide. Last month, Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, formally petitioned the justices to overturn the decision.
Even if Obergefell were overturned, the federal government would still be required to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages under the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden. But that law does not require states to issue new marriage licenses, meaning bans in more than a dozen states could once again be enforced.
Potential fallout
The implications would mirror the fallout from the reversal of Roe v. Wade, with individual states deciding whether to allow or block same-sex marriages. Couples in states with bans would likely need to travel to other states to wed.
Conservative pushback
The Supreme Court has not indicated whether it will take up Davis’s formal request, but some justices have suggested overturning the Obergefell ruling. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that he and his fellow justices should overrule decisions that inhibit state restrictions on same-sex marriage and contraception, as well as sodomy and some private consensual sexual activities. He called previous rulings on those issues “demonstrably erroneous.”
Public opinion split
Support for same-sex marriage remains strong overall, but divides sharply along party lines. A May 2025 Gallup poll shows that 88% of Democrats supported gay marriage, compared to just 41% of Republicans — the lowest support among conservatives in a decade. A separate study conducted by three firms in June, however, showed a slimmer majority of Republicans — 56% — still backing marriage equality.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
