re: Supreme Court - "Sex discrimination" includes gay and transgender discrimination

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It's not because I said so, it's because the text of the law says so. You're saying the text of the law is a weak argument for what the law means? Ok.

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It’s not explicitly against it either. If you can’t make a rational argument besides it not being explicitly in fine print for sexuality not being a protected class, then you don’t have an argument. This is a natural extension of the law that the Founders were counting on happening.

This decision effectively ends female athletics.

Inside of 20 years, every women's American record will be held by a biological male.

#feminismfail

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This is employment law. It’s not opening the door to that specifically.

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Lol.

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Dude, this is a natural extension of the law.

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No, it's not. When the law was written, the people knew what sex was and they knew what sexuality was. They didn't include sexuality but they included sex. Since then, there have been multiple attempts to amend the law to include sexuality or sexual orientation and have failed.

As I said, sex and sexuality are materially different, which is why sexuality/sexual orientation needed to be added separately. There's a difference between hiring/firing a person because they are homosexual and hiring/firing someone because they are a man or woman. That's why the distinction should have been made in the law.

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Gay rights weren’t really a thing when the Civil Rights Act was being written, but if were as acceptable to be gay in the 60s as it is today, you can bet your arse that would have been included.

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Then they would have included it in the law and there wouldn't be a dispute.

I don't think you get how legislation works.

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If you can’t make a better argument than it isn’t explicitly written there, then you lose in the courts.

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This proves you don't know how it works. The law is the law. It's not the law plus whatever we want it to be. It's why laws are changed over time and it is why we have a separation of powers. The judiciary is only supposed to interpret the constitutionality of the law, not amend it or create it.

It's also why Congress is elected to make and amend laws. They have the constitutional power to do so and if the people don't like a law, it's the responsibility of Congress to change it or revoke it. It isn't the responsibility of the courts to ignore the law in favor of what they, personally, think is right from a policy standpoint. It's simply not their job.

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This is stuff that our Founding Fathers had in mind for the evolution of our nation.

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You speak of the founding fathers' intent while ignoring what they specifically laid out for us. We have a separation of powers for a reason.

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unelected legislators

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It's always comical the same people that point this out are the same ones that are Rah Rah constitution is great. Until the part i don't like goes against me.

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It's not the word "unelected" that I have a problem with. It's the combination of "unelected" and "legislators" that I have a problem with.

The whole point is that the judiciary is supposed to interpret law according to the Constitution, not write new laws. It's the job of elected legislators to make the laws.

It’s as if they didn’t either bother to see if it made sense.

Scenario A:

Ask sexual orientation but don’t disclose sex. Which leaves sex of applicants ambiguous.

Scenario B:

Ask race. Nothing is ambiguous if you check a box that says black! I’m going to have an aneurysm over this stupidity.

They interpreted that firing a man for dating a man while not firing a woman for dating a man is discrimination based on sex which violates the constitution... They did what they were supposed to do.

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If you can’t make a rational argument besides it not being explicitly in fine print for sexuality not being a protected class, then you don’t have an argument.

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Discrimination based on having swastika tattooed on your forehead isn't explicitly in fine print either, so that should be a protected class. It's a natural extension.

I'm going to try one last time, then I give up because you're either stupid, you failed civics, or something. You are making arguments for why the law should have been changed. "Hey, we didn't cover gays back than and we should have" is the argument you take to the legislature. That is why they exist; to write laws, to fix laws, to get rid of old laws we don't need. If you think the law should have been changed, fine. If you think I don't have an argument against that, fine. That's the debate congress should have, and it acts or it doesn't act. The legislative branch is for............wait for it..............legislation.

It is not the court's job to add things to the law that they think should have been included. That's what they frequently do; it's what they did with gay marriage. But it's not their job.

Also. I'm still befuddled how we have accepted the concept of ANY protected classes.

By definition, the government declaring certain classes of people as "protected" is government sanctioned discrimination.

This decision is really built on one question. What is sex? Is “sex” one’s biological genatalia? Is “sex” one’s sexual preference? Is “sex” one’s personal identity?

3 members of the court believed the word “sex” meant the first one. The other 6 believed the word also included one or both of the latter two.’

Congress had ample opportunities to clean up the discrepancy but refused to act.

I am not a fan of SCOTUS acting in place of Congress, but in this case, the meaning of “sex” is a legitimate question within their scope. If it were me deciding, I would see three potential rationals:
1. Which meaning of sex most closely matches the intent of the drafters of this law?
2. Which meaning of sex is most consistent with the concept of maximizing individual liberty?
3. Which meaning of sex is going to be the easiest to enforce, create the fewest “slippery slopes” of unintended consequences, and be predictable in the future?

From a rights standpoint, I cannot see how Congress would draft a rights bill with the intent of purposefully excluding rights of a class of people arguably covered by the same language. At the same time, the gay rights movement was still in its infancy, and Congress was far more socially conservative at the time. It is likely they did not contemplate LGBT people applying.

From a rights standpoint, ensuring people are protected from arbitrary discrimination is an imperative to increase liberty. Thus, extending those protections is the correct call.

On a judicial efficiency standpoint, the easiest decision is to have “sex” be defined as purely biological set at birth. This is because this is a non-fluid, predictable, objective standard which can be backed by official documentation. Sexual identity is largely personal and defined by how one sees themselves, rather than by a physical characteristic. The Civil Rights Movement was all about eliminating discrimination based on arbitrary, but definable physical attributes. Opening up rights based on gender identity and sexual preference means that how people see themselves changes over time, thus how the law applies to them changes over time, and all of that without an objective test to fall back on. This decision makes judges and courts have to work harder to define what someone’s identity is, whether that was known by the employer, whether that was the employer’s intent, etc. It makes for more difficult court cases with more purely subjective questions. With that said, the reality is that the overwhelming majority of states and municipalities had already addressed this controversy by passing their own laws and ordinances to protect gays, lesbians, and often trans as well. Thus, “opening up” protections for LGBT people would not change outcomes much at all because state courts are already doing this work.

For these reasons, not knowing all of the facts of this case or the minutae of workplace discrimination law, if I were a judge, I would probably have sided with the minority in this case while calling for Congress to make a law specifically extending these protections to LGBT people. However, personally, I’m happy with the decision because it reached what I believe to be the right outcome. Much like Obergafell v. Hodges, I agree with the result, but not with how the court got us there.