A Light in a Dark Shite Year: US Supreme Court Upholds Employment Protection for LGBTQ+

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/15/supreme-court-lgbt-rights-decision-319693

The US Supreme Court voted 6-3 that Title VII does protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status. Justice Roberts (appointed by Bush) and Gorsuch (appointed by Trump) joined the more liberal judges on the decision, with Gorsuch writing the majority opinion.

Gorsuch's explanation of the decision is fantastic, where he states descrimination sexual orientation is irremovable from sex. If two employees are both attracted to men, with the only difference between the two being one is a man and the other a woman, then the dismissal of one employee based on their attraction would be discrimination based on sex.

I was very happy to hear that this was the decision, but also extremely sad that a) this has to be celebrated because there's legitimate surprise that it went the way it did, and b) something so obvious and basic still requires adjudication in current society.

It seems insane that this is even up for debate, but good news regardless.

Good news. Interesting article from 538 on Gorsuch and Kavanaugh being far more likely to be swing justices than most people thought.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-supreme-court-might-have-three-swing-justices-now/

Oh man, I had not seen that article by 538. That thing is something else. Every time I see them apply math to court decisions, I die a bit inside. It’s not that you can’t do it, but that it doesn’t do much that it useful. And boiling decisions down to a binary to create some weird scoreboard is peak cable style news politics, where everyone wants to be ESPN.

So many cases are decided not just in the facts and views of the justices, but also the procedural history. So many cases get punted because they are procedurally rotten, but got to the Supreme Court because the topic is some political football that is rushing to the highest court.

This decision rules and has been a long time coming. I knew Roberts wasn’t going to rule That protections didn’t apply. That mans sole goal in life is to keep the highest court out of the cross hairs of Congress.

I mean they *are* literally owned by ESPN.

Standing pat while other rights for trans people are being eroded is not the biggest celebration to me. There has been a lot of dangerous right wing movement in courts subtly over the years.

Its not something that is sexy to cover and doesn't get attention. But nothing is safe.

Exciting!

Hell yes!