Gorsuch and Roberts joining the majority.
Can hardly wait for DJTās very eloquent tweet. āVery, very BAD decision by the Supreme Court which we will APPEAL! Very bad for the country!ā
Wrong thread for this but finally 2020 has some good news.
SCOTUS opinion in Bostock :
We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.
Edit: More detail. Gorsuch (!) writing for the majority.
Some of those who supported adding language to Title VII to ban sex discrimination may have hoped it would derail the entire Civil Rights Act. Yet, contrary to those intentions, the bill became law. Since then, Title VIIās effects have unfolded with far-reaching consequences, some likely beyond what many in Congress or elsewhere expected. But none of this helps decide todayās cases. Ours is a society of written laws. Judges are not free to overlook plain statutory commands on the strength of nothing more than suppositions about intentions or guesswork about expectations. In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employeeās sex when deciding to fire that employee. We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law. The judgments of the Second and Sixth Circuits in Nos. 17ā1623 and 18ā107 are affirmed. The judgment of the Eleventh Circuit in No. 17ā1618 is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered
Matt_W
5243
You have to weave a pretty tortuous path to argue that Americaās exceptional featuresārare as they areāare due to the way we were founded. And any claim of American exceptionalism that comes from an American is immediately suspect solely due to source, because itās really hard to exist in a cultural milieu and have any degree of objectivity about it. But our Constitution isnāt particularly good among democracies, weāre never first at expanding the franchise, we kept slavery longer than almost all of Europe, we perpetrated genocide against the people who already lived here etc etc. As far as human freedom, political representation, and social justice go, weāre thoroughly middle-of-the-road in most cases. Yes we have a gregarious culture, and an abundance of natural resources and geographic isolation which has made us prosperous, but itās circumstance (including our haphazard 20th century immigration policies) that has made us a superpower, not the beacon of freedom that we shine from the top of a hill.
I mean look how easily our political culture is corrupted, how armed our populace is, how violent and corrupt our internal security force is, how much of our population is imprisoned, how awful our health care provisioning system is, how responsive the political system is to the wishes of oligarchs, and how mediocre our social mobility is. Iām an American because I was born here. Certainly I think the ideals of equality, opportunity, and optimism expressed in the Declaration of Independence are good ones, though not in any way uniquely American. I think the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights, is a pretty decent enumerations of political freedoms that a state should reify in order to preserve a thriving political culture. And I am proud that we are truly exceptional at protecting and maintaining a culture of freedom of speech. But erecting grandiose temples to these personages (always men) from our past, particularly if we conceive of ourselves as a forward-thinking people, just seems odd to me. History is a collection of stories, not a monument made of stone.
Thats a very strangely worded opinion - it says explicitly that they are hanging conservatives out to dry on this because an aspect of law they added in bad faith forced their hand, not that there are issues of fundamental rights they are defending.
Itās not tortuous to understand the United Stateās unique role in world history without going metaphysical about it - though many people like to do so. My only point wasnāt to gloss over Americanās many sins but attacking fundamental myths erodes the core rationale of American unity, in the sense that if you turn heroes into humans, thatās fine, but if you turn humans into villains your implicitly rejecting the things they created.
Itās a bit like saying āI donāt have a problem with Christianity as long as i donāt have to believe in Jesusā sort of thingā¦ yea, you can squeeze that thread through that tiny, tiny needle-eye, but really, youāre rejecting the basic rationale of its existence. These guys arenāt so much useful as actual historical figures -flawed as they are - but actively attacking them as the ābad guysā certainly doesnāt reinforce unity but encourages division, because itās saying more or less explicitly that what they built cannot be defended and should be torn down.
Not sure why you think itās strange. If the statuteās language is plain, and it doesnāt breach constitutional rights, why would they need to defend fundamental rights instead of upholding the statutory language?
The implication is that their opinion would be different if the legislation changed. Itās a weaker opinion than saying fundamental rights supersede the language of the legislation.
Abortion was legalized for example, in the US, because the majority opinion said it contradicted fundamental rights, such as the right of privacy, in the basic Constitutional form.
That doesnāt make it strange, though. Especially not for a majority conservative court.
I mean, a win is a win and iām not going to reject it, but itās clearly worded, unlike Roe v Wade, to be overturned as soon as itās been changed legislatively. Rather than these rights being considered fundamental, the opinion is coded as āwhen you change the law, you get your discriminationā.
Again, not strange! This is Neil āThe law says he should have died in his truckā Gorsuch, after all. But, more broadly, if a Supreme Court can rely on statute, it usually will. And thereās a big difference between finding a law (restrictions on abortion) unconstitutional for infringing rights, and saying that a law applies (and therefore is implicitly constitutional) in particular circumstances. Thereās no reason to make a rights-based ruling in the latter case.
Now, you could imagine a case where a court found the law didnāt protect those rights but the constitution did, but thatās not the case here (nor one that this court would likely support).
We should all be glad itās not a rights-based ruling, because if it were it wouldnāt have gone this way.
Thrag
5252
It appears among the three dissenters there are two dissents. Kavanaugh wrote his own dissent where he gives a lot of praise to LBGTQ people. Odd.
Timex
5253
I said this before, and Iāll say it againā¦ I think you folks are likely to not hate Gorsuch as much you initially though you would, despite the fact that McConnell put him in there in such a sleazy way.
Kavanaugh, youāre gonna hate probably.
Pretty much. Court denied hearing a raft of 2nd amendment cases too which pissed of BK and Thomas.
Matt_W
5255
I donāt think you could ever find employment non-discrimination in the Constitution no matter how hard you look. I feel like Title VII is probably safe. Itās hugely consequential, affects many aspects of daily life for all Americans, and has woven itself into our culture and legal apparatus. But who knows? I also never thought in a million years that Trump would be elected. I continue to have the feeling that people in other timelines shudder when they imagine ours.
I never had a huge issue with Gorsuch, if he had been appointed in the normal way. Kav is a bag of dicks, and is completely unsuited to be on the Supreme Court.
Edit: Thereās also the matter of Kavās rather massive debts being paid off by some unknown entity. That seems like a disqualifying problem all of itself to me.
Thrag
5257
Since weāre talking todayās SCOTUS stuff here, they declined review of the Qualified Immunity matter.
sad trombone
KevinC
5259
Cāmon, how could anyone hate this face?
