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A3 THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 2020 Supreme Court rules for LGBT worker protections Bars workplace discrimination By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Mon- day that a landmark civil rights law protects gay, les- bian and transgender peo- ple from discrimination in employment, a resound- ing victory for LGBT rights from a conservative court. The court decided by a 6-3 vote that a key provi- sion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 known as Title VII that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against LGBT workers. “An employer who fi res an individual for being homosexual or transgender fi res that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court. “Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.” The decision was a defeat not just for the employers, but also the Trump admin- istration, which argued that the law’s plain wording compelled a ruling for the employers. Gorsuch, a con- servative appointee of Pres- ident Donald Trump, con- cluded the opposite. He was joined in the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four liberal members. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s other Supreme Court pick, dissented, along with Jus- tices Samuel Alito and Clar- ence Thomas. “The Court tries to con- vince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is prepos- terous,” Alito wrote in the dissent. “Even as under- stood today, the concept of discrimination because of ‘sex’ is different from dis- crimination because of ‘sex- ual orientation’ or ‘gender identity.’” Kavanaugh wrote in a separate dissent that the court was rewriting the law to include gender iden- tity and sexual orientation, a job that belongs to Con- gress. Still, Kavanaugh said the decision represents an “important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans.” The outcome is expected to have a big impact for the estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers across the country because most states don’t protect them from workplace discrimination. An estimated 11.3 million LGBT people live in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA law school. Gerald Bostock, a gay county government worker from Georgia whose law- suit was one of three the Supreme Court decided Monday, said no one should have to be “fearful of los- ing their job because of who they are, who they love or how they identify. And the justices have now made sure J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo The Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Monday. ‘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.’ Justice Neil Gorsuch that we won’t have to worry about that.” John Bursch, who argued the appeal from a Michi- gan funeral home owner against a fi red transgender employee, said, “Americans must be able to rely on what the law says, and it is disap- pointing that a majority of the justices were unwilling to affi rm that commonsense principle. Redefi ning ‘sex’ to mean ‘gender identity’ will create chaos and enor- mous unfairness for women and girls in athletics, wom- en’s shelters, and many other contexts.” But Monday’s decision is not likely to be the court’s last word on a host of issues revolving around LGBT rights, Gorsuch noted. Lawsuits are pending over transgender athletes’ participation in school sport- ing events, and courts also are dealing with cases about sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms, a subject that the justices seemed con- cerned about during argu- ments in October. Employ- ers who have religious objections to employing LGBT people also might be able to raise those claims in a different case, Gorsuch said. “But none of these other laws are before us; we have not had the benefi t of adver- sarial testing about the meaning of their terms, and we do not prejudge any such question today,” he wrote. The cases were the court’s fi rst on LGBT rights since Justice Anthony Kenne- dy’s retirement and replace- ment by Kavanaugh. Ken- nedy was a voice for gay rights and the author of the landmark ruling in 2015 that made same-sex marriage legal throughout the United States. Kavanaugh gener- ally is regarded as more conservative. The Trump administra- tion had changed course from the Obama administra- tion, which supported LGBT workers in their discrimina- tion claims under Title VII. During the Obama years, the federal Equal Employ- ment Opportunity Commis- sion had changed its long- standing interpretation of civil rights law to include dis- crimination against LGBT people. The law prohibits discrimination because of sex, but has no specifi c pro- tection for sexual orientation or gender identity. Democratic presiden- tial contender Joe Biden, Obama’s vice president, praised the decision on Twitter as “another step in our march toward equality for all. The Supreme Court has confi rmed the sim- ple but profoundly Ameri- can idea that every human being should be treated with respect.” In recent years, some lower courts have held that discrimination against LGBT people is a subset of sex discrimination, and thus prohibited by the federal law. Efforts by Congress to change the law to explicitly bar job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity have so far failed. The Supreme Court cases involved two gay men and a transgender woman who sued for employment dis- crimination after they lost their jobs. Aimee Stephens lost her job as a funeral direc- tor in the Detroit area after she revealed to her boss that she had struggled with gender most of her life and had, at long last, “decided to become the person that my mind already is.” Stephens told funeral home owner Thomas Rost that following a vacation, she would report to work wearing a conserva- tive skirt suit or dress that Rost required for women who worked at his three funeral homes. Rost fi red Stephens. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincin- nati, Ohio, ruled that the fi r- ing constituted sex discrimi- nation under federal law. Stephens died last month. Donna Stephens, her wife of 20 years, said in a statement that she is “grateful for this victory to honor the legacy of Aimee, and to ensure peo- ple are treated fairly regard- less of their sexual orienta- tion or gender identity.” The federal appeals court in New York ruled in favor of a gay skydiving instruc- tor who claimed he was fi red because of his sexual orien- tation. The full 2nd U.S. Cir- cuit Court of Appeals ruled 10-3 that it was abandoning its earlier holding that Title VII didn’t cover sexual ori- entation because “legal doc- trine evolves.” The court held that “sexual orienta- tion discrimination is moti- vated, at least in part, by sex and is thus a subset of sex discrimination.” That ruling was a vic- tory for the relatives of Don- ald Zarda, who was fi red in 2010 from a skydiving job in Central Islip, New York, that required him to strap him- self tightly to clients so they could jump in tandem from an airplane. He tried to put a woman with whom he was jumping at ease by explain- ing that he was gay. The school fi red Zarda after the woman’s boyfriend called to complain. Zarda died in a wingsuit accident in Switzerland in 2014. YEARS In a case from Georgia, the federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled against Bos- tock, a gay employee of Clayton County, in the Atlanta suburbs. Bostock claimed he was fi red in 2013 because he is gay. The county argues that Bostock was let go because of the results of an audit of funds he managed. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Bostock’s claim in a three- page opinion that noted the court was bound by a 1979 decision that held “discharge for homosexuality is not pro- hibited by Title VII.” Associated Press writers Alex Sanz in Atlanta and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report. Seafood & Grill FATHER’S DAY JUNE 21 st DADS EAT FOR 1/2 PRICE! 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