Tuesday, June 16, 2020



Equality wins in the US

The US Supreme Court has ruled that existing anti-discrimination law covers sexual orientation and identity:

The top court in the US has ruled that employers who fire workers for being gay or transgender are breaking the country's civil rights laws.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court said federal law, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, should be understood to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The ruling is a major win for LGBT workers and their allies.


This is despite Trump trying to stack the court with Conservatives - it appears that even they can read a statute, and understand that firing someone for being gay or trans necessarily involves consideration of sex, and punishing them for behaviour that they would not question if they had been of a different sex. A lot of people on the American right are probably wondering what the point of court-stacking is if these people turn out to have limits to their hackery (not everyone is as limitless as Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas). Because for them, its not actually about the law, but the "social order" they think it upholds: an order which has people like them at the top, and everyone else subject to their whim. Hopefully this case will be another rock on their grave.