The Supreme court on Monday ruled that job discrimination on basis of sexual orientation or transgender status is illegal.
According to the Supreme Court, an existing federal law forbids job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender status.
By a vote of 6-3, the court said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate because of a person’s sex, among other factors, also covers sexual orientation and transgender status. It upheld rulings from lower courts that said sexual orientation discrimination was a form of sex discrimination. “An employer who fired 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,” Gorsuch wrote for the court. “Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.” “Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result,” he wrote, adding, “But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands.” “Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit,” he wrote.
the decision was written by President Donald Trump’s first Supreme Court appointee, Neil Gorsuch, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four more liberal members to form a majority, nbc news reports.
#lgbtq#gay#transgender#news#sexualorientation#supremecourt#discrimination#victory#equality
