The U.S. Supreme Court is set to meet behind closed doors this week, where it will consider whether to hear a petition filed by former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who is urging the justices to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 landmark ruling that guaranteed same-sex couples the same legal rights and responsibilities of marriage as different-sex couples.

Will the Court take up the case?

Would they go so far as to overturn Obergefell?

What happens if they do?

The jury is out on the first two questions. Some experts believe the justices won’t take up Davis’s case at all, while others say they will, and see it as a vehicle to overturn marriage equality and toss it back to the states — which the Court did in Dobbs — removing the constitutional right to abortion.

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And what happens if they take it up, and take marriage rights from same-sex couples?

Currently, there are 32 states across America that still have laws on their books limiting or banning same-sex marriage, according to Axios. Just 18 states, along with five territories and Washington, D.C., have no marriage equality bans, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

MAP estimates that nearly half (47%) of all LGBTQ people in the U.S. live in areas where their state laws and constitutions ban same-sex marriage. The marriage bans could become law again should the Supreme Court overturn Obergefell. Like the SCOTUS decision that ignored precedent and “settled law” by striking down Roe v. Wade, those bans could spring back into action and become state law once again.

State lawmakers have done little to overturn those same-sex marriage bans and enshrine the rights of same-sex couples into their state laws and constitutions as a backstop to the Supreme Court’s possibly impending decision to overturn Obergefell.

Last month at Politico, Professor of Law Kimberly Wehle served up “5 Reasons the Supreme Court Might Change Its Mind on Same-Sex Marriage.”

Wehle notes that the Court’s composition itself is far different than it was in 2015. There is a staunchly conservative 6-3 majority on the bench. Justice Clarence Thomas has called for a review of all “substantive due process” Supreme Court precedents on which Roe v. Wade was based.

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In his Dobbs concurring opinion, Thomas wrote: “in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold [v. Connecticut], Lawrence [v. Texas], and Obergefell [v. Hodges]. Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous’ . . . , we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”

Wehle also wrote that three justices who wrote strong opinions against same-sex marriage — Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Samuel Alito — remain on the bench. She notes that the Chief Justice wrote that “although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage.”

Now, Kim Davis’s case needs just four justices to grant certiorari — a vote to take up the case.

Legal scholars warn that Obergefell could face new scrutiny under the Court’s “history and tradition” test, a framework some consider highly controversial.

Wehle also points to several recent cases that SCOTUS decided against the LGBTQ community.

There are other issues underfoot that might bolster the Supreme Court’s decision-making process.

The Texas state Supreme Court, for example, last week, ruled that judges may refuse to marry same-sex couples, merely citing their “sincerely held religious belief” against the practice.

Longtime legal writer and commentator David Lat does not believe the Court will take up Davis’s case and overturn Obergefell, in part on technical grounds.

Republican strategist David Urban, in a USA Today opinion piece last week, claimed, “Marriage equality isn’t in danger, but Democrats need you to stay afraid.”

His reasoning?

“Support for same-sex marriage is on the rise, including on the right.”

Not according to a May Gallup poll, as NCRM reported at the time.

Nearly nine in ten Democrats (88%) say marriages between same-sex couples should be recognized by law as valid, according to Gallup, but less than half that—just 41 percent—of Republicans agree. That’s a fourteen-point drop from the highest level recorded for right-wing voters, 55 percent, in 2021 and 2022.

“The current 47-point gap between Republicans and Democrats is the largest since Gallup first began tracking this measure 29 years ago,” the polling firm reported.

Asked whether they “personally believe that in general” gay or lesbian relations are “morally acceptable or morally wrong,” even fewer Republicans, just 38 percent, said they are morally acceptable. The national average is 64 percent, and the average among Democrats is 86 percent.

Indeed, one of Wehle’s reasons same-sex marriage might be in trouble is that overturning the ruling would be good for Republican politics.

“Overruling Obergefell could be good for the GOP, too,” she wrote. “With pivotal congressional midterm elections coming up, an opportunity to vote against LGBTQ+ rights could turn out a subset of far-right voters in red states who might otherwise stay home.”

And she observed, the “threat of political pushback from the left has proven to be irrelevant to these justices.”

Last week, MSNBC reviewed the Davis case, and noted that “since John Roberts became Chief Justice in 2005, the court has ruled in favor of religious organizations in 85% of the argued cases it heard.”

Host: Kim Davis is asking the Supreme Court to revisit her position and overturn Obergefell. The ideological balance of the court has shifted dramatically to the right. Since 2005, the court has ruled in favor of religious organizations in 85% of the cases it heard. What’s more,… pic.twitter.com/r0oCdW5ZfD

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 29, 2025

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Amid the administration’s refusal to tap contingency funds to sustain the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — and with two federal judges now ordering it to do so — President Donald Trump came under fire Friday for claiming that most SNAP recipients are Democrats.

Forty-two million Americans may lose their benefits starting on Saturday if the Trump administration does not act.

While there are no exact statistics on party affiliation, large numbers of SNAP users reside in deep red states.

According to WIRED, data collected by the USDA “shows that deep-red states like Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana are among those with the highest percentage of food stamp recipients.”

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And according to Philip Bump, the former Washington Post columnist, “more members of vulnerable populations who receive SNAP benefits … live in districts that also voted for Trump.”

President Trump, however, offered a different perspective while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to Mar-a-Lago.

“And, you know, largely, when you talk about SNAP, you’re talking about largely Democrats, but I’m president. I wanna help everybody,” he said. “I want to help Democrats and Republicans, but when you’re talking about SNAP, if you look, it’s largely Democrats, they’re hurting their own people.”

Critics pushed back against the President’s claim.

“Florida has nearly 3 million SNAP recipients. Texas has 3.5 million. All those deep red Southern states have huge SNAP populations,” noted Punchbowl News co-founder John Bresnahan.

“This is not true at all. The loss of SNAP funding will hit red America hard, too,” observed MSNBC deputy managing editor of news Zack Stanton. “Even if it was true, it’s weird to be ok with Americans going hungry because they live in blue states.”

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“He’s trying to say—of course—that SNAP is for poor non white people, mostly living in the cities he wants militarily occupy. But, as it happens, SNAP is also for lots of poor white people living in the rural/small town areas Trump claims to care about,” wrote Dissent Magazine’s Richard Yeselson.

“And there it is. Trump openly reveals why he and other Republicans are cutting SNAP. The irony is that a lot of poor people in America who are on SNAP are rural Trump voters,” noted U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA).

“Trump is refusing to fund SNAP during the shutdown (something every other administration has done) because he wrongly believes that all families who rely on it are Democrats, and Democrats deserve to starve,” wrote The Lincoln Project.

“SNAP helps feed children, including one in four kids in America. Are children Democrats or Republicans? I don’t know BECAUSE THEY ARE CHILDREN. SNAP also helps veterans, seniors and people with disabilities,” commented U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA).

“All the Democrats have to do is say ‘let’s go’”: President Donald Trump tells NewsNation’s @KellieMeyerNews that Democrats are “hurting their own people” as SNAP benefits are frozen tomorrow as the government shutdown continues. More: https://t.co/mcLNnSkXOa pic.twitter.com/oK8iIsXZ7d

— NewsNation (@NewsNation) October 31, 2025

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Prominent conservatives are rebuking Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation — the organization behind Project 2025 and self-described “intellectual backbone” of the conservative movement — after he threw his support behind right-wing political commentator and podcaster Tucker Carlson, now under fire for platforming far-right extremist leader Nick Fuentes this week.

The editors of the right-wing National Review in a scathing editorial explained: “Tucker Carlson, knee-deep already, has taken another step into the muck with a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes.”

“The issue isn’t merely that Carlson ‘platformed’ a white-nationalist influencer,” they wrote. “The deeper problem is that Carlson didn’t actually challenge any of Fuentes’s noxious views that he has spelled out quite clearly over the years. Fuentes has engaged in Holocaust denial, called Adolf Hitler ‘really f– cool,’ and said that if his movement gained power, it would execute ‘perfidious Jews.'”

The editors continued: “In his appearance, Fuentes stated that the ‘big challenge’ to unifying the country against tribal interests was ‘organized Jewry in America,’ and he expressed admiration for Soviet butcher Joseph Stalin. He did not receive any pushback from Carlson.”

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In a video rushing to Carlson’s defense, Roberts declared, “The Heritage Foundation didn’t become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians. And we won’t start doing that now.”

Instead, he framed the controversy surrounding Carlson and Fuentes as “the robust debate we invite, with our colleagues, our movement friends, our members, and the American public,” while vowing to “always defend truth.”

And Roberts insisted that “we will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”

He vowed that the “attempt to cancel him will fail,” and said that “canceling” Fuentes is also “not the answer” — before denouncing “the vile ideas of the left.”

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) in remarks made at a Republican Jewish Coalition gathering, said:

“If you sit there and nod adoringly while someone tells you that Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II, if you sit there and nod while someone says, ‘Well, there’s a very good argument that America should have intervened on behalf of Nazi Germany in World War II.’ If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are a coward, and you are complicit in that evil.”

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As Jewish Insider reported, Cruz “did not mention the Heritage Foundation, Roberts, Carlson or Fuentes by name, though he accused anyone who uncritically promotes Adolf Hitler of being ‘complicit’ in spreading virulent antisemitism.”

Jewish Insider also reported that the head of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Matt Brooks, told the news outlet, “I am appalled, offended and disgusted that [Roberts] and Heritage would stand with Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes as somehow being acceptable spokespeople within the conservative movement.”

Brooks added, “obviously there’s going to be a reassessment of our relationship with Heritage in light of this.”

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the former longtime Republican Leader, responded to Roberts’ video with biting condemnation: “The ‘intellectual backbone of the conservative movement’ is only as strong as the values it defends.”

“Last I checked, ‘conservatives should feel no obligation’ to carry water for antisemites and apologists for America-hating autocrats. But maybe I just don’t know what time it is…”

Right-wing commentator Erick Erickson, in a lengthy rebuke, blasted Roberts (and numerous other targets): “Kevin Roberts could have chosen to criticize Carlson as a friend. Kevin could have chosen silence. Instead, he picked the worst possible option of dismissing very legitimate criticism and did so in the most straw-man possible way.”

“I also know what Kevin Roberts, J.D. Vance, and others are doing as they dance around some of these guys, Erickson wrote. “They want to attract young zoomers to their side, many of them male, and they think the way to do that is to punch back hard at critics, refuse to fold to criticism, and show a high tolerance for inflammatory positions that rile up the left.”

There has been speculation that @Heritage is distancing itself from @TuckerCarlson over the past 24 hours.

I want to put that to rest right now—here are my thoughts: pic.twitter.com/F8bcxBIqKI

— Kevin Roberts (@KevinRobertsTX) October 30, 2025

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