The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that employers cannot fire workers because of their sexual orientation or self-determined gender identity, while dissenting justices opined the Court was legislating from the bench.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion for the Court in a 6-3 decision, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh all dissented from the majority opinion.
The decision considered a trio of discrimination cases before the Court, two of which involved employees who said they were fired because of their sexual orientation in Bostock v. Clayton County and Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda.
A third case, Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. v. EEOC, involved a man who lost his job at a Michigan funeral home after he had gender-transition surgery and returned to work dressed as a woman; the funeral home had sex-specific dress code policies for employees.
The question at issue was whether or not protections against sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act also applied to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
On Monday, the Court’s majority ruled that “An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in November had asked the Court not to extend Title VII protections to sexual orientation and gender identity, because to do so would “redefine a fundamental element of humanity.”
“Words matter,” the statement from leading U.S. bishops said. “‘Sex’ should not be redefined to include sexual inclinations or conduct, nor to promulgate the view that sexual identity is solely a social construct rather than a natural or biological fact.”
On Monday morning, the religious freedom legal group Alliance Defending Freedom stated on Twitter that “[r]edefining ‘sex’ to mean ‘gender identity’ will create chaos and enormous unfairness for women and girls in athletics, women’s shelters, and many other contexts.”
“Civil rights laws that use the word ‘sex’ were put in place to protect equal opportunities for women,” ADF stated, adding that for a court “to redefine a term with such a clear and important meaning undermines those very opportunities—the ones the law was designed to protect.”
ADF is currently representing three female high school track athletes who sued the state of Connecticut’s high school athletic conference for allowing biological males identifying as female to compete in female track.
The Court’s majority noted Monday that Congress may not have anticipated Title VII protections being considered for sexual orientation and gender identity cases at the time of the law’s enactment, “[b]ut the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands.”
Justice Samuel Alito wrote one dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Thomas.
“There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation,” Alito wrote. The law does not mention “sexual orientation” or “gender identity,” he said, and Congress for decades has considered legislation to add that language to Title VII but has not yet done so.
“But the Court is not deterred by these constitutional niceties,” he wrote. “Usurping the constitutional authority of the other branches, the Court has essentially taken H.R.5’s provision on employment discrimination and issued it under the guise of statutory interpretation. A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall.”
Justice Kavanaugh, writing his own dissent, stated that “[u]nder 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.”
Gorsuch, writing for the Court’s majority, acknowledged religious freedom concerns for employers in the Court’s decision. Religious organizations and employers do have certain protections from discrimination lawsuits under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, he wrote.
However, the religious freedom question would be a matter of future consideration since “none of the employers before us today represent in this Court that compliance with Title VII will infringe their own religious liberties in any way,” he wrote.
The above comes from a June 15 story in the Catholic News Agency.
Can workers be fired if they “self identify” with a race other than their biological race, the one “assigned at birth?”
Or, what if an employee identifies with a species other than homo sapien? (… as long as they bark quietly…)
This choose your own reality is quite interesting.
Can one self identify as an exemplary employee?
Can I create the state that I live in, like SVOP (Silicon Valley Occupied Protest)? As long as I still get tax dollars from the rest of you, that’ll work.
And, in SVOP, those who self identify as cops can carry automatic weapons and have no law enforcement training.
We, the faithful must prepare for the coming wrath of God. Man has forsaken the Lord and His Ways. As St. Peter warned “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” (Acts 2:40)
Justice Gorsuch’s opinion and the majority ruling are much narrower than most people believe. Gorsuch is saying that an employer cannot discriminate on the basis of sex because that is the law. Therefore if a man finds other men sexually attractive (i.e. is homosexual) he cannot be fired by an employer for that because the employer does not fire women for finding men sexually attractive. To fire a homosexual man for his attractions would be to treat him differently on the basis of his sex. It’s subtle reasoning, and probably technically correct based on the plain meaning of the law’s text, as Gorsuch said he adhered to. So the root of the problem is the law that prohibits any discrimination on the basis of sex. Men and women are biologically, psychologically, spiritually different. We should discriminate on the basis of sex in some things. Not all discrimination is immoral. Maybe the law should be rewritten to refer only to rate of pay or working conditions: that there be no discrimination on the basis of sex in those two areas of employment. But in other areas, where sexual difference makes an important difference, discrimination should be legal because it is moral.
Perhaps the Priest and Deacon who are frequent posters will comment if the following sentence is incorrect. As I understand it, the Church says we must love the sinner and hate the sin. One of the reasons same sex marriage came about was when a lesbian couple had to file separate federal income tax returns. This resulted in a substantially larger tax due than would be the case under a joint return. The couple sued and won the right to file jointly.
Does ‘love the sinner’ allow an employer to terminate an employee because the employee is gay or trans?
mike m, I hope this isn’t an example of “fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” but I’ll try to answer.
Generally, love the sinner and hate the sin is a good paraphrase of Christian teaching.
However, the Church opposes any legal redefinition of marriage (not only same sex, polygamy and interspecies as well) based on the fact (natural law as well as Christian teaching) that marriage is one man and one woman. This is not out of animosity toward anyone. Gay and lesbian couples were ensured equal legal status via legal domestic partnerships, this includes not only tax benefits, but also hospital visitation rights and other privileges. And, the Church supports that. That’s based on the dignity of each and every human person.
Pope Francis has reiterated Church teaching that to intentionally deprive a child of a father or a mother is a form of child abuse. Children have a right to a father and mother when possible. And, children do not naturally result from same-sex unions. Catholic adoption agencies, therefore, don’t place children with same-sex couples.
I hope this helps explain the Church’s teaching.
I’m not sure that’s correct…that the Church supports legal domestic partnerships. What if a boy and a man have a partnership? Or three people? And what if I own a home and don’t want to rent to a gay couple because I have children and don’t want them to be affected by this unnatural relationship? And what about a Kindergarten teacher who was a man and dresses as a woman because he changed his gender (impossible). Can’t that be considered a violation of my rights because when my child entered the classroom this was a man and now considers himself to be a woman. There are lots of circumstances here….
Legal domestic partnerships involve two adults (not children or a throuple). (That could change, but that’s the way the law has been.)
During the Proposition 8 campaign (which, twice, defined marriage as one man and one woman), I’m pretty sure the bishops’ conference came out supporting the legal rights of same-sex “couples” as far as hospital visitation, property rights and some other legal rights. The landlord issue is understandable, but, would you also refuse to rent to opposite sex fornicators?
I didn’t address the trans issue. And, children should never be subjected to Drag Queen Story Hours. As you noted, there are lots of circumstances. Some Church teaching is clear and some other things may be matters of prudential (and legal) judgment. In specific cases, people may want to talk with trustworthy pastors or spiritual directors. Let’s continue to pray for those with same-sex attraction, gender dysphoria as well as those in not unnatural sexual sin.
“Legal domestic partnerships involve two adults (not children or a throuple)” Whether something is legal does not necessarily make it right. Remember Dred Scott. I still don’t believe the church has come out for this. As for people living together of course, I would not want to rent to someone in a sinful relationship. But to me there is the outward appearance of two men vs. and man and a woman. How would my children know if they weren’t married, the man and the woman. While two men holding hands and kissing would definitely be more dangerous for my children to be subject to. That’s my view anyway.
mike m, In answer to your last question, about the termination of an employee who is gay or trans, I don’t think the Church’s teaching on that is as clear (but, I’m open to correction, if there’s some Church teaching of which I’m unaware). So, please note, some of this is my personal opinion only (which I try to form based on the Church’s teaching, which is truth). Having spent my life in a secular profession, it seems that “firing” someone solely on the basis of his or her homosexuality would be unjust. I have worked with professional, competent, caring lesbians and a couple of gay men. We’ve respected one another, even though we realize we do not agree on issues like same-sex “marriage.” They know that I do not “hate” them and, in fact, care about their well being, as I believe they do about mine.
Now, where the Church is clear, churches and other voluntary organizations have agreed upon beliefs and principles, including resulting standards of behavior. So, based on its mission, a church, Christian school or related organization should be able to terminate an employee (who previously signed an agreement to abide by certain standards) should he or she fail to represent that institution and its values. No one is forced to work for a Christian church (or any other place in any faith community) nor do they have a right to such employment.
Not the first time supposed conservative justices have made huge mistakes. Roberts and Gorsuch are just the latest examples why we must not put out trust in men, but in the Lord, who does not disappoint us.
Not a mistake; Gorsuch adhered to the strict letter of the law, which is his job as a justice. Just so happens that adhering to the letter of the law had unintended consequences most likely not anticipated when the law was written. God has disappointed me many times, so there’s that too. You can’t tell me you’ve never been disappointed by Providence.
A gay music director was released from St. Mary’s Church after he had contracted a so-called “marriage” with his gay partner. His priest, Father Francesco Francese, formly met with the music director to inform him that Church policy doesn’t allow people to publicly represent the Church while living a public life in contradiction to Church teaching. ‘
Bishop Thomas Tobin released the following statement:
When Church leaders have to respond to situations involving persons living an openly “gay lifestyle” these days, we’re often scolded and told that we should be “more like Pope Francis,” presumably the “Who-am-I-to judge” Pope Francis.
Perhaps those critics should also remember the Pope Francis who said that same-sex marriage is destructive of families and is the work of the devil.
And the Pope Francis who has now supported the Mexican Bishops’ campaign to oppose gay marriage in their country.
And the Pope Francis who rejected the nomination of the Ambassador from France because the Ambassador is openly gay.
And the Pope Francis whose administration immediately fired and disciplined a priest who was working in the Vatican upon learning that the priest was gay and involved in a relationship.
It seems to me, then, that when we uphold the faith and teachings of the Church about homosexuality, we are indeed a lot like Pope Francis.
Kevin T, this decision was a gross misapplication of the law as it was intended. If you are a Catholic, you may find your parish being sued for refusing to perform a same sex so-called wedding. Those who followed the strict letter of the law were Thomas, Alito and Kavanaugh, read their dissents for your education.
As to your being disappointed by God, that is your clue to get yourself in line with His wisdom. His ways are not yours, get over it.
The point is that a good judge interprets the law as written. If legislators want better or more clear laws, they need to write them more clearly. Just because you disagree with the decision doesn’t mean it was incorrect jurisprudence. It was a correct ruling. It’s the law that’s flawed; not the ruling. Update the law, revise the law to mean what you want it to mean, and then the Supreme Court ruling is moot. Simple.
I hope you never spread your “wisdom” around a children’s cancer ward. Would you tell them and their families to get in line with God, that his ways aren’t our ways, and they should just get over it?
Such pent-up anger, bordering on nastiness, in you at anyone who expresses a differing opinion. Wonder what the source of that is?
That His wisdom would abound in a children’s cancer ward! Kevin T, may the peace of Christ be with you.
Kevin T, important to differentiate opinions from facts. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but facts are neutral and must be presented and defended.
Zechariah 8:16
Yes it was incorrect Kevin, but you don’t recognize objective Truth….the conflict between the two sides is inevitable
I know a few Catholics who are bitterly condescending towards other Catholics. Thy attend the Latin Mass and the women wear veils, and they think they are better Catholics for doing those things. They also don’t know as much about the faith and tradition as they think they do. Their conservative pious practices are reactionary and politically motivated instead of coming from authentic faith. They are also Trump supporters. I pray for them.
Covey, I usually wear a veil, hat or headband when the Blessed Sacrament is present in Church as I think It is a lovely custom, and understand it more now. I did not always do so. Nonetheless, a few months ago, I slipped into a church to pray before the Blessed Sacrament while bareheaded since I had no access to any headcovering. Lightning did not strike me, nor did I expect it to do so. I am not one to make a woman feel uncomfortable at the Latin Mass because she is not wearing headgear, but I have no problem putting handouts in a church to explain the beautiful custom.
Correction: the ladies name is Corey, not Covey. New glasses for me are long over due.
There is another whole issue also. Many women have health problems, and often wear a beautiful scarf or other head piece to cover up a loss of hair.
Anne TE I’m pleasantly surprised you found a Church that was open to slip into, even before COVID most in the cities are closed, though more and more seem to be having weekly eucharistic exposition.
It was at the end of last year, or the first of this year. I was coming back home from a medical scan and stopped off at one that is open most of the time, at least until the Covid shutdown. When you are as old as I, time flies. and what happened two years ago seems like yesterday. Also, I can only write four and one half lines on here, so I cut out much of the detail, so I do not bore people with two many posts.
Daniel Horowitz, senior editor at the Conservative Review gets it right, “In Roe, they redefined life. On Obergefell, they redefined marriage. In Bostock, they redefined sexuality.”
In Fatima, Our Lady said the last battle would be over marriage and the family. We have been warned.
Ooooooooohhhhhhhhh, we’ve been warned. Fatima was private revelation and none among the faithful are required to pay any attention to it.
Not required Kevin, but ignore at your own peril.
This was not something that Our Lady of Fatima said. It was something that the surviving visionary of Fatima wrote in a letter to Cardinal Caffarra. The prediction was not attributed to Our Lady.
Kristen, many times I have said on here that those who push for fake marriages between two men or two women or so-called sex changes do not know biology 101, while forgetting that the number 101 has a strong connection to the prophecies of Our Lady of Akita. For many years I worshipped at a Shrine in California that had the statue of Our Lady of Akita. It was ran by some of the holiest priests I have ever known who were some of my spiritual directors were many years. One priest at that shrine was Rev. Fr. Francis X. Shichida. It was hard for me to understand Fr. Shichida at first as he was born in Nagasaki, Japan, (cont.)
Thanks Anne TE, for sharing that.
It has been said that Akita is a continuation of Fatima. Interestingly, after many years Sister Agnes received a private message from the Blessed Mother on October 6, 2019, the opening day of the Amazon Synod. Sr. Agnes was told to “Cover in ashes and please pray the Penitential Rosary every day”.
The alleged message which is still being verified and clarified was from an angel, not from the Blessed Mother.
Anne TE: so catholics are supposed to believe in numerology and how college courses were numbered in the 1960s?
I’d rather believe in Jesus, thanks
You did not read all my posts, or read the wrong website. I only recommended the National Catholic Register, as some of the others are not Catholic. It has nothing to do with the occult. Numbers do have meaning in the Bible. The numbers three, seven and six are often not to be taken literally, but symbolically. Seven being the number for completeness. Most priests and ministers will tell you that. The number 666 in the Book of Revelation is the symbolic number of the anti Christ as six falls short of the number seven which stands for perfection.
Look up “Biblical Numerology” on Wikipedia. It has a pretty accurate description of it. Biblical numerology is NOT the same as pagan or occult numerology.
(Cont.) but he had the most beautiful melodious speaking voice, very, very calming. Later I learned he had majored in music but his talent for music was not used that much at the shrine.
I still have the memorial card for his death, August 31, 1995. On it are the words of St. Francis Xavier as he passed away, and on the back is the Eucharistic Prayer of Akita. I recommend all google Our Lady of Akita and the number 101 to see what I mean. It is the same message as Fatima.
Our Lady of Akita, pray for us, and may Fr. Francis Shichida, though the mercy of God, rest in peace.
“In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; I shall never be confounded.” — Words of St. Francis Xavier as he passed to everlasting glory.
The Rev. Francis Zenji Shichida died at the Shrine of Lourdes in France.
The website I recommend concerning Akita is the one by the National Catholic Register.
The flip side of this ruling is that all affirmative-action and diversity-based hiring and promotion policies should now be considered unconstitutional. If an employer may not discriminate on the basis of sex (or race or the other protected categories) in making a decision to fire, neither may the employer discriminate on the basis of those characteristics in hiring or promotions. If you hire or promote someone because she is a woman, then you are discriminating illegally because you are hiring or promoting someone you wouldn’t if that person were a man. If you hire or promote someone because he is of a certain skin color, then you are discriminating illegally because you are treating that person differently than you would if his skin color was different. Someone should sue all the way to the Supreme Court challenging equity, diversity and inclusion policies in employers and use this recent Supreme Court ruling as the basis for arguing that all hiring policies that show preferences on the basis of sex or race are illegal because they violate the plain meaning of the statute.
Maybe that is the brilliance behind Gorsuch’s and Robert’s decision, which some commenters are too dense to see. Gorsuch and Roberts have rendered a decision that seems to be a liberal victory and contrary to conservative principles, but it really spells ultimately the destruction of what liberals are trying to impose if you carry out the reasoning to its logical and necessary conclusion. Astute observers should note what you realized too. Seems even Thomas, Alito and Kavanaugh couldn’t understand what’s going on here. This should have been a 9-0 decision, with the liberal justices later looking like fools because they’ve been had by their betters on the bench.
Yes, and I could self identify as a black male, or even a talking, typing giraffe if carried through to its conclusion. Just hilarious. It is a total Catch Twenty Two. They should have stuck with how the founding fathers had it, or went through an amendment process. Better yet, they should have stuck with how God has it. After all He is higher and smarter than the Supreme Court of the United States. Biology 101. Some would say, “It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature”. I would say, “It’s not nice to fool with the Father.”
Affirmative action has already been under attack, especially when it mandates quotas and other things that might provide a distinctive this one is in but theis other one is out dividing line. This decision was Title VII protects individuals not classes or groups of people.
In any case, where federally mandated affirmative action is enacted by Congress, it could always be defended as a carve-out of Title VII, just as the religious freedom restoration acts have been seen as a carve-out of Title VII. Congress has the power to do that, and since Title VII is a statute not a Constiutional amendment, one statute doesn’t take precedence over another.
To those who say Gorsuch redefined sex in a way that could not have been for seen in 1964, and therefore not the intention of Congress, that argument is impossible to defend. There is absolutely no question that if “Kim” wouldn’t have been fired but for the fact that she is a woman, that would violate Title VII. The definition of her sex is absolutely clearly what Congress meant. If Kim is married to Bob, and she wouldnt have been fired but for the fact that she is a woman, that would be the same. If Kim is married to Bob and Kim wouldn’t have been fired but for the fact that he is a man, that too is clearly the same definition of sex used in 1964. It’s actually really pretty simple. It’s when we try to make it complicated that we distort the true intentions of the Congres in 1964.
Yes, “YFC”, it is pretty simple. Male or female, that’s it. Check Genesis 5:2 where it says definitively that God made them male and female, with no mention of fluidity or identification.
All the twisting and angst in the world will not change His Word, and neither will the opinions of 6 justices.
That’s right Kristin, and we live under a Constiution and a set of laws, not under a Pentateuch or a Sharia Law. What matters in this decision is what the Congress meant in 1964, not what God plus or minus Moses meant in Genesis.
Don’t be so sure. If you go to Detroit and other cities, or other parts of Europe, some want Shariah Law to be enforced there. If you find yourself a eunuch in some hareem in the future, don’t forget I told you so. Of course I will be dead by then. Right now all we have is lawlessness.
“YFC”, whether you acknowledge it or not, we live under “a set of laws” from God Himself, the Ten Commandments, His laws. Men may flaunt this with their laws, but His Word reigns Supreme. Not interested in your rebuttal.
Do we really believe to know what the court meant in ’64? I’m more confident that nobody at the time would have thought that the term “sex” meant “sexual orientation” or “gender identity at odds with biological sex,” yet the Supreme Court, in Bostock v. Clayton County, said that it now does. The law is now read to mean something different in 2020 from what even the most liberal Justices would have said in 1964.
We think Justice Alito had the better of the argument: The law has long understood that sexual orientation and identity are distinct concepts from sex. When the military banned gays and lesbians alike from serving, or the immigration laws banned homosexuals from entering the country, the response was to change the law, not to pretend that the question was one of gender discrimination.
In the finality of things, I believe this terrible ruling will sooner then we think, bring about a horrible confrontation between our Church and also conservative Protestants with the state.. Sadly with the weak leadership we have, will our clerics knuckle under to these attacks and rulings by SATAN or will they say no ,we will not comply to your evil? If they do then we will lose the Church in this nation .Similar things have happened in the past.
The court made the right decision in this case. Substitute any religion (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) for LGBTQ and you will better understand the logic of the court’s decision.
Substitute religion for sodomy? That’s a new one. Logic is definitely what’s missing in their decision as the rulings on same-sex sodomy unions and Roe v. Wade baby killing decisions indicate. Unleashing the power of the Devil is more like it….
Western civilization lost another one in our Slouching towards Gomorrah. Gorsuch and Roberts legislated future decades of chaos. Look at how abortion started as a penumbra.
The Owner, supervisors and other employees set a charitable example, termination is resulting from malfeasance, not doing ones assigned job duties. Possibly hiring one is a different matter. DISCERNMENT of the persons character will be needed if ascertain if the potential employee is worth hiring.