Neil Gorsuch Sides with Gay and Trans Community in Landmark Supreme Court Opinion. Wait .. THE Neil Gorsuch?

Firing an employee for being gay or trans is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Period. That’s the conclusion that the progressive stalwart … Neil Gorsuch(?!) (a Trump appointee) arrived at in his majority opinion today on the case Bostock v Clayton Cty, GA. What does it mean? It means that the LGBTQ community has the same employment rights as everyone else, and can sue for employment discrimination. That’s it. There’s more we could write about this, but the tl;dr really is as simple as the fact that employment discrimination laws protect LGBTQ employees along with everyone else now. That should not even be controversial, and the fact that Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented shows you how incredibly backward they are.

Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas were two of the three dissenters on the SCOTUS decision to protect LGBTQIA rights, because misogyny and sexual violence are deeply, inextricably linked with transphobia and homophobia and you cannot fight one without fighting all four

— Sady Doyle (@sadydoyle) June 15, 2020

Dear Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and, I cannot emphasize this enough, Brett Kavanaugh: pic.twitter.com/JnKZwWPmzr

— Greg Craig (@TheGregCraig07) June 15, 2020

Also, as someone on Twitter said, it also makes a Trump appointee better on trans rights than J.K. Rowling.

JK Rowling is worse than Neil Gorsuch on trans rights that's fucked

— Maynard G. Muskievote (@BobbyBigWheel) June 15, 2020

The decision comes three days after the Trump administration removed protections that prohibit discrimination in health care against transgender patients. It is unclear (to me, at least) whether today’s decision will affect that movie, which was announced on the four-year anniversary of a shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Florida.

In other news, the Supreme Court also delivered another defeat to ICE and the Trump administration.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court just denied the administration’s attempt to force local law enforcement to do ICE’s bidding.

This is a win for all communities, particularly communities of color, and keeps us all safer.

— ACLU (@ACLU) June 15, 2020

The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, which is a victory for Sanctuary Cities. On the flip side, the Supreme Court also declined to review qualified immunity cases. Qualified immunity basically protects people like police officers from personal liability in all but the most extreme and most egregious police brutality cases (and in many cases, it affords them protection in even those cases). Honestly, “qualified” immunity has been expanded so much in police brutality cases that it is tantamount to absolute immunity. This is something that Congress needs to fix ASAP. If Derek Chauvin escapes personal liability for the death of George Floyd under qualified immunity, there will be holy hell. Based on the way that qualified immunity has been applied to police brutality cases in the past, count on it.

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Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba.

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