'Everything Is on the Table' After Supreme Court Rulings: Law Professor

The United States Supreme Court "made it very clear" that more civil rights could be at risk in the coming years, warned New York University law professor Melissa Murray during a Sunday MSNBC appearance.

The Court's ruling in a key LGBTQ+ rights case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, on Friday has sparked concerns about the future of that community's civil rights in the U.S. The Court ruled 6-3 in favor of web designer Lorie Smith, who successfully challenged a Colorado law that would require her to design websites for same-sex weddings. The justices ruled that law would violate her free speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, paving the way for creative businesses to refuse "expressive services" if doing so violates their beliefs.

The ruling, as well as the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a 2022 decision that overturned federal abortion rights, signals that the Court's conservative justices could be open to reexamining other cases related to civil rights and liberties previously decided by the Court, Murray said on MSNBC's Inside With Jen Psaki.

Murray said the Court has "made it very clear they they're not bound by stare decisis," a legal term referring to precedent, in "circumstances when it comes to interpreting the Constitution," meaning that all precedents could be "on the chopping block."

"They've said repeatedly both last year in Dobbs and this year that they are free to look at these precedents and correct what they believe are egregious errors, so yes, everything is on the table. Justice Thomas told us this last term in his concurrence in the Dobbs case," Murray said.

She pointed to a number of cases that could be at risk of being overturned, including Loving v. Virginia, which made interracial marriage legal nationwide, Griswold v. Connecticut, which prevents bans on contraceptives for married couples and Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that made same-sex marriage legal nationwide.

Murray noted on Sunday that it is unclear whether there will be an "immediate frontal assault on gay marriage," but that the Court's decision "is a beginning" to chip away at the expectations of services same-sex couples will have in the public sphere.

"Once you normalize the idea that you can treat same-sex couples differently, you're well on your way to rolling back recognized rights," she said.

Murray told Newsweek in a phone interview on Sunday afternoon that composition of the Court, which has shifted toward conservatives in recent years, has created a super majority that has emboldened them to take on these cases.

"Law and politics frequently intertwine," she said. "I think what many people are taking issue with is the way in which this particular court and its conservative supermajority seems to have prioritized prosecuting a particular ideological agenda ahead of well-worn methods of interpretation and restraint that has guided the court throughout its history."

Congress has the authority to reign in the Court, Murray explained. Lawmakers could limit its jurisdiction, expand the Court, cease its funding or impose a code of ethics that the justices must follow, though doing so may be difficult due to Congress' inability to work together, she said.

Similar concerns grew after the Court's Dobbs ruling last June, which overturned Roe v. Wade, after Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion that the Court "should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell." He described the precedents in those cases as "demonstrably erroneous."

Meanwhile, these concerns have prompted calls to codify same-sex marriage. Last year, President Joe Biden signed into law the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires states to recognize marriages performed in other states, but would not require states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples should Obergefell be overturned.