AUDub 11,158 Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 Gorsuch wrote the opinion. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf Gorsuch has been an interesting appointment, but from a strictly textualist approach this isn't too surprising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitanTiger 20,499 Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 I don't really have a problem with this in principle, particularly for gays/lesbians. The transgender thing is a questionable ruling IMO because I think we shouldn't be equating "sex" and "gender identity." I also share Alito's concerns about this ruling and its lack of nuance as it pertains to how these things might get handled by religious organizations. And from a strict textualist approach, I can see why he would basically rule against this on the basis that if Congress wishes to outlaw discrimination for sexual orientation or gender identity, then they should amend the law to include those things, not have the judiciary stretch the definition of "sex" to incorporate them. I know a lot of religious conservatives aren't happy about the ruling and feel that Roberts and Gorsuch 'betrayed' them in some way. For those folks who voted for Trump almost solely on the basis of getting strong conservative SCOTUS picks, that's got to particularly feel like a kick in the teeth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McLoofus 35,182 Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 1 hour ago, TitanTiger said: I know a lot of religious conservatives aren't happy about the ruling and feel that Roberts and Gorsuch 'betrayed' them in some way. For those folks who voted for Trump almost solely on the basis of getting strong conservative SCOTUS picks, that's got to particularly feel like a kick in the teeth. And a well-earned one at that. Hooray for small victories. May they learn from their mistake and show their progeny a better way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homersapien 11,393 Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 Why the religious right is so freaked out by the Supreme Court’s LGBTQ ruling Paul Waldman Opinion writer June 16, 2020 at 1:08 p.m. EDT When the Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Civil Rights Act protects gay and transgender Americans from discrimination in employment, social conservatives were predictably outraged. They called it “a grave threat to religious liberty.” They said that white evangelicals, having now been betrayed by Justices John G. Roberts Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch (who voted with the court’s liberals in the case), would not bother going to the polls to support President Trump. They said that “Roberts no longer pretends to be a judge; now Gorsuch has left his robe behind as well.” Their shock is probably sincere; with five extremely conservative justices making up the court’s majority, any opinion that contradicts the right’s perspective on anything is a surprise. But this is a reminder that as central as reactionary social conservatism — especially its obsession with its version of sexual “morality” — is to the broader Republican project, there are limits to how far elite conservatives will go to defend it. Even though the Trump administration took the pro-discrimination position in this case, and even though you’ll have a hard time finding any conservatives defending the decision, I suspect that in many quarters on the right, particularly in Washington, there isn’t all that much concern. Just as they accommodated themselves fairly quickly to marriage equality, your average big-business conservative won’t look at this decision and feel that their world is falling down around them. They also know — as do the social conservatives — that it’s the economic conservatives who drive the Republican train. The social conservatives may get most of what they want most of the time when Republicans are in power, but the interests of capital will always be taken care of first and last, with tax cuts and deregulation and anything else their hearts desire. So when conservative writer Varad Mehta proclaims Monday’s decision is “the end of the Federalist Society judicial project. Gorsuch was grown in the Federalist Society lab and did this,” adding that the whole point of the Federalist Society and the whole point of electing Trump was “to deliver Supreme Court victories to social conservatives,” he’s only partly right. Gorsuch was indeed “grown in a Federalist Society lab” — the Federalist Society was created to nurture a steady supply of conservative judges who could be pre-vetted and delivered to a Republican administration for quick appointment. But who do you think is lavishly funding the Federalist Society to make sure their interests are taken care of? It’s not social conservatives. It’s corporations. Gorsuch himself is a product of the conservative elite: Georgetown Prep, Columbia, Harvard Law, Supreme Court clerkship, white-shoe law firm, Bush II Justice Department, some time on the Court of Appeals, then up to the high court at age 49, a trajectory almost identical to that of Roberts and Brett M. Kavanaugh. He may want to see Roe v. Wade overturned, but he’s probably more interested in dismantling the administrative state. Now that this decision has been rendered, social conservatives are raising alarms that churches and religious organizations will no longer be allowed to discriminate. But they shouldn’t worry. A long line of Supreme Court decisions have exempted churches and religious organizations from all kinds of laws preventing discrimination. In the 2014 Hobby Lobby case, the court even extended special privileges to private corporations who say they want to ignore the law (in that case, the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that employer-provided insurance include contraception coverage) because of the owners’ particular interpretation of their religion. There will be cases in the near future that will more clearly define the limits of Monday’s ruling on the Civil Rights Act, but no one seriously thinks that this conservative court won’t carve out expansive exceptions that allow all kinds of groups to keep firing people because they’re gay or transgender. So what has the religious right so dismayed isn’t the idea that now they themselves might have to tolerate a gay person in their midst. It’s that distaste for their animus toward gay and transgender people has become so widespread that even two conservative justices, who have been their allies in so many other cases turned against them. I was particularly taken with a tweet from Carrie Severino, president of the right-wing Judicial Crisis Network, which accused Gorsuch of deciding as he did “for the sake of appealing to college campuses and editorial boards.” That’s a laughable claim, but it shows the locus of her concern: the elite cultural institutions where the views of her side are rejected. Severino’s husband, Roger, whom the Human Rights Campaign calls a “radical anti-LGBTQ activist,” heads the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services. He is one of a cadre of social conservatives working in the administration to advance a social conservative agenda on sexuality and other matters; just last week, the administration eliminated protections against discrimination in health care for transgender Americans, a move that could be undone by the Supreme Court’s ruling. That shows the complexity of the situation: Social conservatives have been given almost everything they want from this administration, even as they are losing the culture war and their values become more and more repellent to most Americans. Given how unpopular those values have become, they still wield an extraordinary degree of power. But even they know it can’t last. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/16/why-religious-right-is-so-freaked-out-by-supreme-courts-lgbtq-ruling/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DKW 86 7,431 Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 The Gay/Lesbian thing was a no brainer IMHO. There are so many friends I have that are that way. The Transgender part...Its their body and not mine. The only thing I think we must revisit is born males competing in girl's sports. Title IX is just not working there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aubiefifty 16,824 Posted June 17, 2020 Share Posted June 17, 2020 does the constitution not state all men are created equal? it should have always been the thing to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitanTiger 20,499 Posted June 17, 2020 Share Posted June 17, 2020 14 hours ago, DKW 86 said: The Transgender part...Its their body and not mine. The only thing I think we must revisit is born males competing in girl's sports. Title IX is just not working there. I agree. And I'm of the same mind. I don't give a rip what someone does in their private life. Change your name, dress like whatever is typical of the gender you see yourself as, to whatever degree your friends and family are agreeable to go along with it have at it. Sleep with who you want. I really Do. Not. Care. But when you want to pull everyone else into this universe with you and compel them by law to bend to its gravitational pull is where I get off the ride. Castigating or trying to "cancel" people for making distinctions that are based in reality between biological females and trans females, demanding full access to womens' and girls' private spaces, demanding to participate in girls and womens sports, etc. - that stuff is bull****. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DKW 86 7,431 Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 On 6/17/2020 at 9:17 AM, TitanTiger said: I agree. And I'm of the same mind. I don't give a rip what someone does in their private life. Change your name, dress like whatever is typical of the gender you see yourself as, to whatever degree your friends and family are agreeable to go along with it have at it. Sleep with who you want. I really Do. Not. Care. But when you want to pull everyone else into this universe with you and compel them by law to bend to its gravitational pull is where I get off the ride. Castigating or trying to "cancel" people for making distinctions that are based in reality between biological females and trans females, demanding full access to womens' and girls' private spaces, demanding to participate in girls and womens sports, etc. - that stuff is bull****. I do not get how the Talking Points Crowd could just be that cruel. If you are a female athlete and train and train and train. You become the best at your sport. Then some male in a dress says comes out as "female." We are fine up until then. But you put him on the same field or court with the true female athlete, she has no chance. NONE. And we are seeing this over and over and over. These trans-athletes are rewriting the record books. That is not progress. That is a crying, unfair shame. The female athletes do not stand a chance against the trans-athletes. They just dont. One of my most "Progressive" friends was absolutely woke on this, until his granddaughter got taken out in a soccer match. She played soccer on travel teams etc. Was a far better than average player, tho not elite by any means. Butch just elbowed he gdaughter in the face and voila' instant reality check. His statement to me was: Well, I guess she is going to have to give up girls soccer now." W.T.F? https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/14/us/transgender-athletes-connecticut-lawsuit/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McLoofus 35,182 Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 I'm in agreement on athletics. You have to be realistic. We group athletes by other demographics- age, weight, experience, etc. We also manufacture parity among teams. I empathize as much as I can with what a person with non-cis gender identity deals with on practically any level- I don't understand but I stand, as the saying goes- but I just can't support a trans woman participating in a sport that is separated by gender for the express purpose of disallowing men from having an athletic advantage over women. While I don't begrudge that woman a single thing that she wants in life, I don't think her right to pursue all of her passions in life supersedes that of her fellow athletes to fair play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.