October 21 2025, 08:15 
Indie rock musician Lucy Dacus recently called out conservative leaders in the U.S. for threatening to overturn marriage equality.
Following her October 13 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live — where she officiated the weddings of four couples while performing her single “Best Guess” — the out singer-songwriter took to Instagram to mark the occasion.
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“154 weddings later, we did the last one for a while during Best Guess on @jimmykimmellive,” Dacus wrote in the post’s caption.
The Grammy-winning member of alt-pop supergroup Boygenius has been officiating fans’ weddings onstage during her recent tour supporting her latest solo album, Forever Is a Feeling. Ahead of the tour’s July 25 kick-off in Philadelphia, Dacus put out a call via Instagram for couples who might want to be married by her onstage at venues across the U.S. and Canada.
“I can think of all sorts of reasons people may be interested in securing the rights granted through marriage (you know what I mean?), so if you’ve had it in mind forever or are just recently making the decision, I will be honored to do the honors!” she wrote in the July 23 post.
Dacus appeared to be referencing efforts by Republican lawmakers — emboldened by President Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election and by statements from conservative Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — to challenge Obergefell v. Hodges, the court’s 2015 decision establishing the constitutional right to marriage equality for same-sex couples.
Her July 23 post came within days of Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky, petitioning the Supreme Court for the second time to hear her case, which argues that people should be able to refuse recognition of same-sex marriages based on religious beliefs. Anti-LGBTQ+ advocates hope Davis’ case will lead the court to overturn marriage equality.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Dacus said that she wished the marriages she’s officiated onstage weren’t “calling to mind any threats to people’s rights.”
“But I can tell it’s coming up in everyone’s mind, everyone who’s onstage, everyone in the crowd,” she said. “There’s no getting around everyone wondering if this is a temporarily possible moment.”
In her October 12 Instagram post, Dacus noted the significance of including two same-sex couples in her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
“Maybe some people got to see their first gay wedding and noticed the world did not crumble under their feet lol,” she wrote. “But sincerely, doing these weddings has been a huge honor. Can’t believe that so many of you were willing to share your Big Day with the rest of us. I hope every single one of you never experiences a bad day for the rest of your life.”
“And f**k the state for continually toying around with the idea of revoking marriage equality,” she added. “It wasn’t a prereq, but 120 of the marriages [performed on tour] were between queer people. Plenty of people made this decision because they weren’t sure how long they would have the chance, or never planned to have a ceremony because their families were unsupportive. I don’t know what to say other than I hope you find love in your heart. Everyone deserves to choose their own family.”
As Dacus noted, even before Trump’s inauguration in January, reports indicated that many same-sex couples in the U.S. were fast-tracking plans to marry out of concern that marriage equality would be threatened under the new administration.
In January, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told NBC News that overturning marriage equality “was never a campaign promise” that Trump made. However, Thomas and Alito have repeatedly signaled that they are eager for the Supreme Court to reconsider Obergefell.
The court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. indicated the court’s 6–3 conservative majority is willing to overturn longstanding legal precedent. In his concurring opinion, Thomas argued that the same legal reasoning for overturning Roe v. Wade could also be used to overturn Obergefell. In more recent cases, the conservative justices have shown a willingness to roll back LGBTQ+ rights in the name of so-called religious freedom.
But in a recent interview, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett argued that the court is unlikely to overturn Obergefell because it has resulted in “very concrete reliance interests.”
Separately, former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the landmark opinion legalizing marriage equality nationwide, also cited reliance interests in an interview in which he said he doesn’t think the decision is in danger of being overturned. Even Justice Alito has recently said that he believes the precedent set by the court’s Obergefell rulling is “entitled to respect.”
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