Professors Jane Schacter and Ralph Richard Banks weigh in on the Supreme Court’s landmark decision on same-sex marriage and how the ruling is an example of the evolving constitution. 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s sweeping decision that same-sex marriage is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment will have widespread implications, legal experts at Stanford Law School said Friday.

The decision on the Obergefell v. Hodges case — perhaps one of the most significant civil-rights rulings in the nation’s history — could affect a slew of states’ laws and policies regarding employment benefits, adoption and health care decision-making, legal scholars said. It could also portend how the court may lean for future equality cases, they said.

Stanford Law School Professor Jane Schacter, a national expert on U.S. Constitutional law and sexual-orientation law, called the 5-4 court decision definitive and categorical.

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Schacter said that position was to some degree unexpected.

“It might suggest that the court might grant more fundamental liberty rights in the future,” she said.

One landmark civil-rights case, Loving v. Virginia (1967), was cited throughout the justices’ decision. Loving overturned a ban on interracial marriage, and Schacter said it is a perfect example of how the court has adapted Constitutional law over time.

“You’d be hard pressed in 1868 to find that anyone thought of doing away with banning interracial marriage. Loving is a classic case of evolving adaptive Constitutional interpretation,” she said.

R. Richard Banks, a Stanford Law School professor and expert in anti-discrimination law, said that Constitutional law has changed dramatically in the past 10 to 15 years.

“In 2000, you could criminalize same-sex relationships,” he noted. Given the court’s same-sex-marriage ruling, “That’s an extraordinary transition in a short period of time.”

Banks said the ruling is unquestionably informed by intentions — how it’s unfair to gays and lesbians. But as in the Loving decision, the court addressed the issue of group equality as opposed to an individual’s right, although it did not formally frame it as a group-equality issue.

“But that’s what’s going on,” Banks said.

Loving was also a group-equality case, he said. While it addressed white supremacy, some might argue that denying same-sex marriage enforces the supremacy of heterosexuals, he said.

The court’s same-sex-marriage decision, while significant, is likely only the first of many regarding gay and lesbian rights, Schacter and Banks said.

“The next chapter will have to do with religious liberty and legislation on the state level to maximize the shield on religious objectors,” Schacter said. “We will see proposals to shield clerks who claim religious liberties to not grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples and bills like the one in Indiana to shield merchants who don’t want to photograph same-sex marriages on religious grounds.”

There is also a potential issue of religion-affiliated colleges not letting same-sex couples live together in campus housing, she said.

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