Plan B Forum

In landmark case, Supreme Court rules LGBTQ workers are protected from job discrimination

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that existing federal law forbids job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender status, a major victory for advocates of gay rights and for the nascent transgender rights movement — and a surprising one from an increasingly conservative court.

By a vote of 6-3, the court said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate because of a person's sex, among other factors, also covers sexual orientation and transgender status. It upheld rulings from lower courts that said sexual orientation discrimination was a form of sex discrimination.

Equally surprising was that the decision was written by President Donald Trump's first Supreme Court appointee, Neil Gorsuch, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's four more liberal members to form a majority.

"An employer who fired an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex," Gorsuch wrote for the court. "Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids."

"Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result," he wrote, adding, "But the limits of the drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands."

"Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit," he wrote.

Across the nation, 21 states have their own laws prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Seven more provide that protection only to public employees. Those laws remain in force, but Monday's ruling means federal law now provides similar protection for LGBTQ employees in the rest of the country.

Gay and transgender rights groups considered the case a highly significant one, even more important than the fight to get the right to marry, because nearly every LGBTQ adult has or needs a job. They conceded that sexual orientation was not on the minds of anyone in Congress when the civil rights law was passed. But they said when an employer fires a male employee for dating men, but not a female employee who dates men, that violates the law.

Gay rights advocates celebrated the ruling.

“The Supreme Court’s clarification that it’s unlawful to fire people because they’re LGBTQ is the result of decades of advocates fighting for our rights," said James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Project. "The court has caught up to the majority of our country, which already knows that discriminating against LGBTQ people is both unfair and against the law.”

Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, said, "The decision gives us hope that as a country we can unite for the common good and continue the fight for LGBTQ acceptance.”

Democratic leaders also praised the decision, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., calling it "a victory for the LGBTQ community, for our democracy and for our fundamental values of equality and justice for all."

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said the ruling was "a momentous step forward for our country," adding that the court had "confirmed the simple but profoundly American idea that every human being should be treated with respect and dignity, that everyone should be able to live openly, proudly, as their true selves without fear."

The ruling was a victory for Gerald Bostock, who was fired from a county job in Georgia after he joined a gay softball team, and the relatives of Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor who was fired after he told a female client not to worry about being strapped tightly to him during a jump, because he was "100 percent gay." Zarda died before the case reached the Supreme Court.

"t is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex. Consider, for example, an employer with two employees, both of whom are attracted to men. The two individuals are, to the employer’s mind, materially identical in all respects, except that one is a man and the other a woman. If the employer fires the male employee for no reason other than the fact he is attracted to men, the employer discriminates against him for traits or actions it tolerates in his female colleague. Put differently, the employer intentionally singles out an employee to fire based in part on the employee’s sex, and the affected employee’s sex is a but-for cause of his discharge.

Or take an employer who fires a transgender person who was identified as a male at birth but who now identifies as a female. If the employer retains an otherwise identical employee who was identified as female at birth, the employer intentionally penalizes a person identified as male at birth for traits or actions that it tolerates in an employee identified as female at birth. Again, the individual employee’s sex plays an unmistakable and impermissible role in the discharge decision."

Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit

TPFKA@W wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 6:13 pm

Oh sweet Jesus, does this mean we have to treat other humans beings as human beings? What a giant pain in the ass.

Joe Guy wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 6:53 pm

TPFKA@W wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 6:13 pm

Oh sweet Jesus, does this mean we have to treat other humans beings as human beings? What a giant pain in the ass.

Relax... The ruling only means that you can't discriminate against other humans. It doesn't mean you have to be nice to them.

RayThom wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 6:51 pm

I need to see how the Tweeter-in-Chief responds to this. I bet he tries to remove Gorsuch from the Supreme Court.

After all, he is the president, he can do anything.

Econoline wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 7:26 pm

Trip all the toddlers you want. Just be sure to be an equal-opportunity toddler-tripper.

TPFKA@W wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 10:30 pm

I anticipate a return to toddler, tipping and tripping come July9th. A tip top toddler tripping tizzy is anTicipated.

Joe Guy wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:04 pm

TPFKA@W wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 10:30 pm

I anticipate a return to toddler, tipping and tripping come July9th. A tip top toddler tripping tizzy is anTicipated.

Be careful what you write. You might be accused of making terroristic toddler-tumbling threats by the TLM movement.