by NINA TOTENBERG

Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued a broadside against the high court's 2015 same-sex marriage decision on Monday when the court declined to hear a case brought by a former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue a marriage license for such couples.

The two justices agreed with the decision not to hear the case but used the occasion to take a legal baseball bat to the court's 2015 decision Obergefell v. Hodges, which declared that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry under the 14th Amendment guarantee to equal protection of the law.

Writing for himself and Alito, Thomas said that the court's decision "enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss."

His words came in a case brought by Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky, who in the aftermath of the same-sex marriage decision refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and was sued. Read more via NPR