Supreme Court Rules That Workers Can't Be Fired For Being Gay

Oxidized Orange Juice in Office. aka President Donald Trump, is probably having a bad day and you can thank the Supreme Court for that.

Source: Chip Somodevilla / Getty

History was made today at the Supreme Court smack dab in the middle of Pride month. The SCOTUS ruled that gay and transgender employees are protected by civil rights laws against employer discrimination. The landmark decision was ruled 6-3 and states that an employer who fires a worker for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act already protected people from employer sex discrimination, as well as discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin.

“Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote. “The answer is clear. 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.”

Justices who ruled in favor include Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. Unsurprisingly the dissenters were Brett Kavanaugh and y’alls lil friend Clarence Thomas as well as Justice Samuel Alito.

Biden weighed in on the decision calling it a “momentous step forward for our country.”

“Today, by affirming that sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination are prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Supreme Court has confirmed the simple but profoundly American idea that every human being should be treated with respect and dignity,” Biden said in a statement. “That everyone should be able to live openly, proudly, as their true selves without fear.”

Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD added that the decision “affirms what shouldn’t have even been a debate: LGBTQ Americans should be able to work without fear of losing jobs because of who they are.”

Today’s landmark decision deals with three cases concerning Gerald Bostock, Donald Zarda, and Aimee Stephens, reports The Hill. 

Bostock was fired from his job as a child welfare advocate for conduct “unbecoming” a county employee soon after he joined a gay softball league in 2013, New York skydiving instructor Donald Zarda was fired days after mentioning he was gay, and Michigan funeral home worker Aimee Stephens was fired after she told her employer that she would be identifying as a woman six years into her employment.

This news comes after Habanero Hitler’s administration announced that they’ll allow health care providers, hospitals, and insurers to discriminate against transgender patients by eliminating an Obama-era regulation in the Affordable Care Act. The news was announced not only during PRIDE month but on the anniversary of the PULSE nightclub shooting.

We hope that with today’s Supreme Court ruling Habanero Hitler is at least crying into a tiny hand-held mug of shame.