The Supreme Court delivered a resounding victory to the nation’s LGBTQ community, with Justice Neil Gorsuch declaring that gay and transgender employees are protected by federal anti-discrimination laws.
“The answer is clear,” Gorsuch wrote in the court’s opinion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, known as Title VII, which prohibits job discrimination because of sex. “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,” he stated.
The court’s 6-3 ruling, which saw conservative justices Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts join the four liberal justices in the majority, resulted in celebratory cries from LGBTQ and civil rights activists. Critics, however, leveled the same criticism again the court that conservatives did against the Warren court when they decided Brown v. Board of Education-- that the justices were "legislating from the bench" and they should only be interpreting the exact wording of the law.
This landmark ruling represents a further blow to the antiquated legal principle which can be traced to the rejected Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in the 1980's. Adherents to originalism claim that all statements in the constitution (and other laws) must be interpreted based on the original understanding of the authors at the time of ratification. Of course, most reject this concept as legal scholars generally acknowledge that the law must be a living body of work-- Congressional legislators cannot be expected to conceive circumstances that might arise hundreds of years into the future. Bork's increasingly fringe concept (also favored by the late Justice Scalia) also conveniently forgets the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution, which provides citizens with rights that are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Even the nation's founders had the foresight to realize that the future of the country would be vastly different than anything they could think of. Who would expect the framers of our constitution to provide for reproductive rights or internet privacy 200 years before the concepts existed? Who would expect Congress of the 1960's to come to grips with complex gender issues that we are addressing 60 years on?
What's shocking to me is that Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh-- despite their tortured, technical rationales for dissenting-- think it's OK for gay people to continue to lose their jobs for the sole reason of being who they are (from birth). What is it in these callous men that prevents them from delivering justice-- the same way the originally-dissenting justices in Brown v. Board of Education joined the majority in order to deliver a unanimous decision?
The court’s 6-3 ruling, which saw conservative justices Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts join the four liberal justices in the majority, resulted in celebratory cries from LGBTQ and civil rights activists. Critics, however, leveled the same criticism again the court that conservatives did against the Warren court when they decided Brown v. Board of Education-- that the justices were "legislating from the bench" and they should only be interpreting the exact wording of the law.
This landmark ruling represents a further blow to the antiquated legal principle which can be traced to the rejected Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in the 1980's. Adherents to originalism claim that all statements in the constitution (and other laws) must be interpreted based on the original understanding of the authors at the time of ratification. Of course, most reject this concept as legal scholars generally acknowledge that the law must be a living body of work-- Congressional legislators cannot be expected to conceive circumstances that might arise hundreds of years into the future. Bork's increasingly fringe concept (also favored by the late Justice Scalia) also conveniently forgets the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution, which provides citizens with rights that are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Even the nation's founders had the foresight to realize that the future of the country would be vastly different than anything they could think of. Who would expect the framers of our constitution to provide for reproductive rights or internet privacy 200 years before the concepts existed? Who would expect Congress of the 1960's to come to grips with complex gender issues that we are addressing 60 years on?
What's shocking to me is that Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh-- despite their tortured, technical rationales for dissenting-- think it's OK for gay people to continue to lose their jobs for the sole reason of being who they are (from birth). What is it in these callous men that prevents them from delivering justice-- the same way the originally-dissenting justices in Brown v. Board of Education joined the majority in order to deliver a unanimous decision?
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