Trump Regime Asks SCOTUS To Legalize Firing People For Being Transgender

Just when one thinks the Trump/Pence regime cannot get any more hostile to the rights - indeed the very existence of - LGBT Americans, another shoe drops and it becomes clear that until gays, lesbians and the transgender in particular disappear from public view, the relentless attacks will only intensify.  Pence is hysterically anti-gay in the typical mold of a likely self-loathing closeted gay.  What Trump actually believes is unclear since his main quest is to thrill Christofascists and maintain his support among anti-modernity, knuckle dragging evangelicals. While evangelicals remain rabidly anti-gay, it is transgender individuals who most garner their open hatred, in my view, because they most challenge evangelicals 12th century views on sex and sexuality.  Therefore, they must be destroyed or at least driven from public view.  Playing to this animus, yesterday, the Trump/Pence regime filed a brief with the U. S. Supreme Court that argues that transgender individuals have zero non-discrimination protections.  A piece in BuzzFeed looks at the filing.  Here are highlights:  

The Trump administration on Friday took one of its most aggressive steps yet to legalize anti-transgender discrimination by telling the Supreme Court that federal law allows firing workers solely for being transgender, arguing a Michigan funeral home could fire a transgender woman because she wanted to wear women’s clothing on the job.

Although the administration was expected to take the stance — and had previously said firing workers on the basis of gender identity is legal under federal law — the latest court filing asks the nation’s top court to establish federal case law in a potentially sweeping setback for LGBTQ rights nationwide.

The case is a dispute over the word “sex.” Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans workplace discrimination because of sex, but the court’s justices have never decided what, precisely, the term means for LGBTQ workers.

The Justice Department’s brief on Friday contends the word refers to a person’s “biological sex” and, further, that transgender discrimination isn’t addressed by a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that found Title VII bans sex stereotyping.

“Title VII does not prohibit discrimination against transgender persons based on their transgender status,” says a filing by the Justice Department . . . Rather, the administration contends, “Title VII prohibits treating an individual less favorably than similarly situated individuals of the opposite sex.”

A Supreme Court ruling in favor of the administration’s position could set off cascading ramifications for LGBTQ Americans by asserting that laws banning sex-based discrimination must be construed narrowly, and it would have no application for sexual orientation or gender identity — a decision that would likely overflow far beyond workplaces.

No federal law explicitly bans anti-LGBTQ discrimination, but the term “sex” appears in countless state and federal laws, and various policies, that ban discrimination. They have often been used by courts and agencies to protect LGBTQ people in a range of settings — from jobs and schools to doctor’s offices — and a Supreme Court ruling that finds sex absolutely does not protect LGBTQ people could unravel previous court rulings and narrow the meaning of policies.

The administration’s argument against LGBTQ rights matches the advocacy of conservative Christian groups, which claim Congress only intended to ban discrimination because someone is male or female . . . .

The counterargument from LGBTQ advocates and several lower courts, however, is that the intent of lawmakers does not limit a law’s reach, but rather its meaning is defined by the statute’s plain text. They say anti-transgender discrimination can result from a person defying traditional sex stereotypes or because the person transitioned from one sex to another — and thus, it is inherently a type of sex discrimination.

The case at issue is one of three currently before the court about the rights of LGBTQ workers under Title VII — and the only one concerning a transgender worker.

Aimee Stephens had presented as a man when she started her job in 2007 at R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes in Michigan. Six years later, after Stephens announced plans to transition to a woman, the owner, Thomas Rost, fired her.

In siding with Stephens last year, a 49-page opinion led by Judge Karen Nelson Moore at the Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit found that “The unrefuted facts show that the Funeral Home fired Stephens because she refused to abide by her employer’s stereotypical conception of her sex.”

But the Justice Department counters that when the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, “the ordinary public meaning of ‘sex’ was biological sex. . . . In Stephens’ case, this means government lawyers now say it was legal to fire her — thereby holding the opposite position as the EEOC even though it is representing the EEOC. As such, it says the 6th Circuit ruling should also be reversed.

Represented by the Christian conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom, the funeral home filed a separate brief, filed Friday, that portrays the case as a fight over the essence of gender norms in society, playing off fears stoked by conservatives about transgender people preying on women in bathrooms.

There are ZERO cases of transgender people preying on women.  The same cannot be said for numerous Republican office holders or countless pastors and priests. Sadly, the ADF brief is yet another case of "conservative Christians" lying through their teeth and putting their hypocrisy on open display. If their lips are moving, the safest assumption is that they are lying.  Yes, I am passionate about this issue having been forced from a law firm years ago for being gay.

A Lesson from the Huge Win for LGBT Rights in India

As Donald Trump and his Vichy Republican enablers seek to pack the U.S. Supreme Court with right wing ideologues who will gran special rights to Christofascists, roll back the rights of women and minorities, the recent ruling in India by that nation's highest court striking down an anti-gay law date back to British colonial rule underscores the need for a balanced Supreme that will protect the rights of all citizens, not just large corporations - which are ridiculously now afforded the rights of living, breathing people - wealthy whites and right wing Christians.  Over the last 60+ years, the judiciary has lead the way in making America a more equal country under the law.  Trump and his Vichy Republicans seek to sweep all of that progress away.  An editorial in the New York Times looks at India's court ruling and by implication the urgency of retaining the Supreme Court as a non-partisan, independent branch of government.  Here are highlights:  

There are many reasons to find fault with modern India. The grinding poverty. The crippling caste system. A culture in which sexual attacks against women often go unpunished. The rise of Hindu extremists obsessed with demonizing Muslims. A political system that often fails to address these challenges.

So the recent groundbreaking, unanimous decision of the country’s top court to overturn a colonial-era ban on consensual gay sex was a welcome affirmation of human dignity.

It was also proof of the power of the judiciary in a democracy — in this case, the world’s most populous democracy — to right wrongs that have long penalized, even terrorized, the most vulnerable members of society, wrongs that politicians would rather ignore.

The 495-page judgment, handed down by the Indian Supreme Court this month, decriminalized gay sex, which had been barred under an 1860 law imposed by the British when they ruled India that banned “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.” The law, under which thousands of people were prosecuted and could be imprisoned for up to 10 years, was “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary,” Chief Justice Dipak Misra wrote. (It remains illegal to have sex with animals or children.)

Significantly, though, the court went beyond the specific question of gay sex by emphasizing the broader concept of the humanity of L.G.B.T. people and the Indian Constitution’s responsibility to protect individual rights and dignity. The court even apologized for Indian society’s past mistreatment of gay people.

Such an outcome was not foreordained in India, a socially conservative nation of 1.3 billion people where the law has often been used for intimidation and where the government, a broadly right-wing Hindu national coalition, is not known for defending minority rights.

[T]he lawyers who spearheaded the successful legal challenge, Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju, devised a new strategy that focused on the personal cost of constitutionally sanctioned discrimination.

They highlighted those who suffered under the law by enlisting as co-petitioners in the suit more than two dozen gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people who risked arrest simply for publicly identifying themselves as L.G.B.T.

“This is a plea by 6 to 8 percent of the Indian population to be regarded as full citizens and not unconvicted felons,” Ms. Guruswamy told the court. “This is love that must be constitutionally recognized and not just sexual acts,” she added.

Given India’s democratic tradition and importance as a rising regional power, the court’s enlightened decision is already inspiring similar legal challenges in more than a half-dozen countries, including Kenya and Singapore.
 One troubling sign was the silence of top politicians, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi, even as the Indian news media, including several conservative outlets, lauded the ruling. Mr. Modi’s government has indicated that while it will support the decision, it will oppose a further expansion of gay rights.

Good luck with that.

Given the court’s sweeping and principled assertion that fundamental rights apply to all Indians, regardless of sexual orientation, activists have made clear their intention to push for the other rights they are denied, including to marry, adopt children, be protected from hate speech and inherit their partner’s wealth.

As Ms. Guruswamy told an interviewer at The Caravan magazine: “But you create constitutional principle. And then you build on it.”

India’s Supreme Court laid that foundation, and has offered renewed hope in the power of democratic institutions to ensure that all people enjoy equal protection under the law.

Here in America, Republicans want a Supreme Court which will guaranty that only some will enjoy equal protection under the law.  Be very afraid.