SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, June 15, 2020 (Gephardt Daily/UPI) — Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall on Monday morning reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that federal civil rights law protects lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers from being fired based on their orientation.
Mendenhall tweeted: “I couldn’t be happier to see such a perfect Pride month decision from the Supreme Court to protect our LGBTQIA community from discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. #PrideMonth #SCOTUS.”
Equality Utah Executive Director Troy Williams also tweeted: “MAJOR LGBTQ WINS AT THE U.S. SUPREME COURT! It is against the law in America to fire someone because they are LGBTQ! #PRIDE2020 #SCOTUS #EQUALITY.”
The 6-3 vote is a significant victory for LGBTQ Americans and advocates. The ruling says Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covers LGBTQ workers from employment discrimination.
Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority, saying Title VII makes it illegal to discriminate based on a person’s sex and the landmark law covers gay and transgender Americans.
The justices ruled that sexual orientation and transgender status applies in that description.
“An individual’s homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions,” Gorsuch wrote in the opinion for Bostock vs. Clayton County, Ga. “That’s because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.
“A statutory violation occurs if an employer intentionally relies in part on an individual employee’s sex when deciding to discharge the employee,” it adds. “Because discrimination on the basis of homosexuality or transgender status requires an employer to intentionally treat individual employees differently because of their sex, an employer who intentionally penalizes an employee for being homosexual or transgender also violates Title VII. There is no escaping the role intent plays.”
The Trump administration had asked the high court to rule that Title VII does not cover LGBTQ Americans, and doing so was not the original intent of lawmakers.
Gorsuch joined Chief Justice John Roberts and associate justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in voting for the majority. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh voted in dissent.
The ruling gives a measure of protection to LGBTQ communities in 29 states that don’t have laws prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The decision was based in part on cases involving Gerald Bostock, who was fired from a county job in Georgia after he joined a gay softball team, and relatives of Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor who was fired after telling a female client not to worry about being strapped tightly to him during a jump because he was “100 percent gay.”
