WASHINGTON — Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who dissented from the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision establishing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, appeared to urge the court on Monday to reconsider the ruling, which they said had invented a right with no basis in the text of the Constitution. “By choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment, and by doing so undemocratically, the court has created a problem that only it can fix,” Justice Thomas wrote, in an opinion joined by Justice Alito.
The justices issued their opinion in a case concerning Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who had been sued for refusing to issue marriage.