It’s illegal under existing civil rights law for employers to discriminate against someone on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. This comes through a new Supreme Court decision handed down Monday, June 15, that says that Title VII of the Civil Rights Code doesn’t limit the interpretation of “sex” to just gender, as the Trump administration had argued.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion, which begins:
Sometimes small gestures can have unexpected consequences. Major initiatives practically guarantee them. In our time, few pieces of federal legislation rank in significance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There, in Title VII, Congress outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. 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.
To keep reading, click here: What the Supreme Court’s LGBTQ Rights Ruling Means for Your Business
Wow, I suppose it’s now ok to admit I once visited a gay square dance club. I note that there’s a lot of fun “fluff” in their dancing, and the American Journal of Public Health study seems true: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/37557883/ns/health-behavior/t/gay-guys-really-are-thinner-study-says/
Hopefully, this will end the saying among gay folks: “Married on Sunday, fired on Monday.” Of course, some opponents are claiming that there should be a religious exception to the law, for those who allege that their religious beliefs compel them to discriminate against differently-gendered individuals.
There will be a religious exemption, as there is with other aspects of the law, and it will be very, very narrowly defined.
You can’t fire someone for being black, or being a Jew, and this is now on exactly the same level.