Supreme Court says Civil Rights Act Protects LGBTQ workers

WASHINGTON D.C. — (06-15-20) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday made history in a 6-3 Decision ruling that Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Are Protected by the Civil Rights Act.

The ruling that employers who fire someone “merely for being gay or transgender” is a Civil Rights violation under federal law. Such a sex-based dismissal is a denial of the rights codified in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to the court.

In a 6-3 opinion authored by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, the nation’s high court issued a thunderous ruling that settled a years-old circuit split caused by three petitioners’ cases in three separate appellate courts. Those cases and controversies were rolled together and stylized as Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia.

Title VII does not explicitly protect against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, however, courts have increasingly used the anti-sex discrimination provisions to protect LGBTQ rights on the basis that sex plays an immutable role in any such discrimination against gay and transgender individuals.

“Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender,” Gorsuch notes in the opening paragraph of the landmark decision. “The answer is clear. An employer who fires 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. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”

The ruling is a setback for the Trump administration’s anti-LGBTQ agenda and an unchecked victory for Civil Rights advocates such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who argued against the proposition that private companies can lawfully fire individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

Needless to say conservatives and religious organizations are outraged over the decision.  Especially with two conservative justices siding with the liberal justices in this landmark decision.

Article by: Paul Goldberg, Staff Writer

Sign Up Below for #JRLCHARTS Breaking News and Follow @JRLCHARTS Daily on Twitter