SCOTUS Rules 6-3 In Favor Of Petitioner In Bostock
I argued about a year ago that the Court could argue as follows:
Since we don't fire John because he has sex with women, we can't fire Mary because she has sex with women. If we do, then we're discriminating against Mary on the basis of her sex.
I kinda still like that argument, though I saw problems with it later. And I think the parallel argument with respect to transgenders is not nearly as strong, and probably shouldn't fly. But maybe...because a parallel argument is available. (I don't fire Mary for wearing a dress, so...) I'm eager to see their argument.We still don't seem to know what grounds the majority actually used yet, because of a problem with their site.
Some conservative sites are saying that the majority ruled that 'sex' means 'sexual orientation' and also means "gender-identity"...but I find that hard to believe, because that's absurd. If that's what they argued, then the majority lost its collective mind. So I conclude that's not what they argued. One way to tell that such a meaning-equivalence thesis is false is: sex is a perfectly good category/concept, but gender-identity is basically a pseudo-concept. (Though it's a bit more complicated than that.) So they can't be the same concept.
Anyway, though I think we should protect sexual orientation, I also think it's probably the kind of thing that ought to be left to the legislature. Especially since (a) such legislation has failed to pass several times (thus strongly suggesting that those who passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 didn't mean to included sexual orientation), and (b) such legislation is currently pending.
My main concern is that the civil rights act is in danger of (in fact in the process of) trashing the Constitution. I happen to be reading Christopher Caldwell, The Age Of Entitlement right now, and he argues that the Civil Rights Act is so expansive that it basically constitutes a revocation of the actual Constitution and its replacement with a Constitution that grants unlimited power to a government (I'd add: that basically must be "progressive"). The law is now unpredictable and unlimited, because you never know what can/will be spun as a "disparate impact" issue (or something similar) next. Well...you kind of can...since anything can...
Better to temporarily forgo some specific alleged rights that seem intuitively correct than to trade in limited government for one that has unlimited power.
I hope my current inclination is wrong, because if it isn't, this could be a tragic decision.
So, by optimism: I'm wrong! Yay!
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