Supreme Court to Decide Whether Civil Rights Law Applies to LGBT Workers
25 replies, posted
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/us/politics/supreme-court-gay-transgender-employees.html
Because you know. You aren't human unless you are cis and straight.
Sorry I had to change the title a bit to fit everything in while getting the same message across.
The cases will be decided in June 2020 so by all means make Democrats furious and eager to pack the court to reverse it, if they do a bad ruling on this.
"The justices must decide if a law that forbids employment discrimination based on sex also bars discrimination based on sexual orientation or transgender status."
So it's a yes, then. 5/4
Republican packed court, that's a no.
The real shitting joke here is, everyone remember USMCA, aka NAFTA 2.0? The document Trump and Trudeau both signed included a clause Canada had strongarmed in that required the US to take appropriate steps to prevent employment discrimination over race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. -- this would have required the US to strengthen protections for trans people. After the national leaders signed the agreement, no material changes to the text are supposed to happen; corrections for typos and such can be made, but material changes to the agreement after the leaders signed off on it aren't supposed to happen.
The "final" text comes out and, lo and behold, there are several material changes that let the US loophole out of obligations or give the US an even greater advantage, and one of the biggest, if smallest, revisions was a footnote to the anti-discrimination clause above that essentially said "The US is already doing enough to satisfy these requirements and does not need to change anything."
Obviously the US isn't satisfying the agreement if the Supreme Court is having to decide if LGBT count as first-class citizens.
On the other hand, it looks unlikely that any of the three nations will ratify USCAM in 2019 and possibly not even 2020, which would be one more strike against the so-called dealmaker.
"Do Civil Rights Laws apply to LGBT workers?"
Yes. Next question?
Seriously, how is this even a debate?
Towards the end of the Obama administration, these issues were finally beginning to be put to rest, but for some reason we've stepped back right over his administration and straight into the nineteen fucking fifties.
"but what about MY civil rights to restrict other's """"civil rights"""" because of my religion, HUH!?!?"
Nineteen fifties sounds a little too far off into the future and far too progressive for how much Trump has regressed us.
'on the other hand, maybe we should just make a minority's lives' worse for no reason'
1920s sounds more along the lines of what Trump is setting us up for. A period of unprecedented growth that was considered to be super prosperous despite corruption being high and wealth inequality being worse than ever.
What happened at the end of the 1920s again?
If they do rule in favor of LGBT people conservatives will be incensed and may drive GOP turnout in the elections
The idea that Trump is a dealmaker was cultivated by a stupid reality TV show. If you look at everything before and since he did that show, he's a pretty shit dealmaker. Trump sold everyone a pack of lies and everyone is suffering for believing in him.
its already dead, pelosci said without allowing democrats to enjoin negotiations that it won't be brought up in the house and McTurtle could care less about anything that doesn't involve court packing
I'm bracing for this:
Supreme Court: "The question at hand is whether this law can be interpreted to protect more than the classes explicitly identified within the law. We find that it does not. Pass a new law protecting LGBT rights."
Republicans: "Nope."
Supreme Court: "Oh, well. Nothing we can do about it." *Innocent whistling*
I'd leave this piece of shit country if I had the money. No idea where I'd go, though. I suppose pretty much anywhere in the English-speaking world is better than this.
I'd offer to let you live in my basement but if I offer my house to FPers I'm gonna have an illegal immigrant commune before I know it.
I'm quiet and can subsist on crumbs dropped through the floorboards, just sayin.
Pretty much this. The supreme court can only look at the law and go "yup, this is what it says." Ethics/morality play zero role in it. And since the law is moderately outdated and not necessarily written with queer people in mind, it's not impossible this is what'll happen.
If it was as clear cut as that, there would be no need for a supreme court in the first place.
It's not solely about following the letter of the law, but the spirit of it as well. Considering civil rights laws were written at a time where LGBT issues weren't as well known as racism or sexism, it's not a huge stretch to believe that those laws weren't written with solely race and sex in mind, but generally any discrimination based on traits inherent to a person.
Except there is. The Supreme Court's greatest power is law interpretation, that's explicitly their most notable role in the government: to look at a law and a case, and see if it fits. Thus, a precedent is set.
What do you mean decide civil rights applies to lgbt workers?
Why wouldn't they? Are they not human? Are they metallic beings that do not fit into standard human norms?
what the fuck is going on? who keeps making shit like this up???
there's actually still a chance on this, it'll be interesting to see where they go with it.
Gorsuch ruled on a case regarding Title VII discrimination acknowledging that trans individuals can state a claim under Title VII. I don't recall whether that was in line with his circuit's precedent or if it was a matter of first impression.
He's also expected to follow in Scalia's footsteps on a lot of things, and there's some debate within the legal community as to whether Scalia would vote to protect trans people. There's language in Title VII precedent from him that indicates that he might've. In a case regarding male-on-male sexual harassment (which was most certainly not on the minds of those passing Title VII), Scalia wrote for the majority that our laws often expand past the principal evils which they were meant to combat to reasonably comparable evils.
There's also Price Waterhouse sexual stereotyping analysis (which basically means "I expect X/Y to behave like (stereotypical conception of) X/Y") which would include trans people.
Also there's a really strong argument that came from some lower district courts. It's basically impossible to consider a trans person's status without considering their sex per se. The courts have related it to converting religion: Title VII protects christians and muslims; surely we would find that a muslim that converted to christianity and was subsequently discriminated against was discriminated against on the basis of religion. Logically speaking this is exactly equivalent to changing one's sex.
basically I'm somewhat confident on the trans angle. Less so on sexual orientation, but who knows. Obergefell might impact that, but it's not Title VII jurisprudence so they might ignore it.
Civil rights law, not civil rights. Sexual orientation and gender expression are not explicitly listed as protected classes; only sex is. When applying that law, you don't just get to make up protected classes. So you have to be creative.
The main two arguments are basically:
Yes: sex is a specifically enumerated protected class. When you're firing someone for being trans or gay, you're firing them because they are not conforming to the "norm" of their sex. In other words, had they been the other sex and exhibited the same behavior, they would not have been fired. So firing based on sexual orientation or gender expression is just an indirect way of firing them because of their sex.
No: sexual orientation and gender expression are specifically not enumerated protected classes and Congress has previously rejected amendments to this law that would have added at least sexual orientation. Thus the Congressional intent seems to suggest that they should not be protected.
The obvious solution is that a blue wave happens and Congress amends the law. But if SCOTUS says no - which they probably will - it's going to be bad in the meantime for the LGBT community in states where there are no state-level protections.
Although with that said, that's kind of already the status quo in those states, so this wouldn't change much.
Yeah, that's my point, they have to interpret it. And to interpret means to look at the context in which a law was written, not just the phrasing and semantics of the text.
In that case people are screwed. The Supreme Court has been dicking around with semantics and phrasing with little regard for original context for nearly a century.
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