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What the Supreme Court’s Ruling on LGBT Work Protections Says
It’s worth celebrating. The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that Title VII, which prevents employment discrimination due to “sex” also applies to gender identity and sexual orientation. The grounds boil down to the fact that if you fire a man for sleeping with men when you would not fire a woman for doing so, sex is a component of your decision.
The decision in the current court was a surprise: The current Supreme Court has elicited worries amongst progressives for being “too conservative” and was considered likely to take the opportunity to strip rights from queer people.
Who Was On Each Side?
The following justices formed the majority: Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan and Gorsuch. The last is probably the largest surprise. Gorsuch was the first of Trump’s two appointees to the court and was widely expected to rule otherwise.
The dissenting side was split. Alito and Thomas dissented, and so did Trump’s second appointee, the rather infamous Kavanaugh…but Kavanaugh chose to write his own dissenting opinion rather than go in with Alito as would have been expected.
Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion.