The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, has handed a major victory to the LGBTQ community Fox News has reported. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.
The Supreme Court handed a big win to the LGBT community Monday, ruling in a 6-3 decision that an employer who fires a worker for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act — which already protected people from employer sex discrimination, as well as discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin.
The decision dealt with three cases. In one, Clayton County, Georgia employee Gerald Bostock was fired from his job as a child welfare advocate for conduct “unbecoming” a county employee soon after he joined a gay softball league. In another, New York skydiving instructor Donald Zarda was fired days after mentioning he was gay, and in a third, Michigan funeral home worker Aimee Stephens was fired after she told her employer that she would be identifying as a woman six years into her employment.
This seems to be a particularly important ruling as this not only applies to people on the basis of their sexual orientation but also transgender people.
We are all aware of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We’ve all seen the language in many places and on many forms. This portion of the act prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, or national origin.
What does the word sex mean to you in this law? That seems to be the crux of the issue that the Supreme Court ruled on. The majority decided that sex means sexual orientation and transgenderism.
The minority, in my opinion, rightly disagreed with this interpretation.
Justice Samuel Alito said the majority went too far, calling the decision “legislation,” in a dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.
“There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation. The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive,” Alito wrote.
Alito noted that the majority opinion “no doubt arises from humane and generous impulses,” acknowledging the desire to treat gay, lesbian, and transgender people “with the dignity, consideration, and fairness that everyone deserves,” but said the court’s role “is limited to saying what the law is,” not adding to it.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh made a similar argument in a dissent of his own.
“Under the Constitution’s separation of powers, the responsibility to amend Title VII belongs to Congress and the President in the legislative process, not to this Court,” he wrote.
If sex included sexual orientation and transgender people, then why have so many states added sexual orientation to their list of protected classes? The answer is simple. It is because they know the word sex in the Civil Rights Act is referring to a person’s biological sex.
Even Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word sex recognizes the plain meaning of the word within the Civil Rights Act itself!
Somehow, the justices determined that the word sex now includes sexual orientation and transgender status.
This is 2020 and words just do not mean what they used to mean.
In general, I am opposed to people losing their job’s simply because of their sexual orientation. However, I am also opposed to the judges making law. And that is what has happened here.
This ruling concerns me because it makes me wonder if religious schools and churches will be forced to hire or keep employed people who violate their beliefs. A Christian school should not be required to hire a teacher who is openly gay. A church should not be required to keep a staff member who is openly gay or transgender.
Religious institutions may have been protected if federal law were actually written protecting the LGBTQ community from discrimination. However, the Supreme Court decided to add it themselves and now religious institutions are at risk. Congress will have to act in order to address this and I’m not sure if Republicans have the stomach for this fight.
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