Looking deeply into the Supreme Court’s LGBT opinion

Yesterday I wrote about the 6-3 decision by the US Supreme Court that ruled that discrimination against gay, lesbian, and transgender people in employment violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that says that it is “unlawful . . . for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

This case was a consolidation of three separate cases. Gerald Bostock and Donald Zerda were both fired from their jobs when their employers learned that they were gay, and Aimee Stephens, who had presented as a male when she was hired, was fired from her job when she told her employer six years later that she planned to live and work full-time as a woman. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Bostock’s firing but the Second Circuit in Zarda’s case and the Sixth Circuit in Stephens’ case said that the firings violated Title VII. Sadly, Zarda and Stephens have died since the cases were filed and thus were not able to savor their victory but their heirs who continued the cases can.
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Big court win for LGBT community

In a major decision, the US Supreme court ruled today 6-3 that LGBT employees are covered by the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act that bars employment discrimination.

The case concerned whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars employment discrimination based on race, religion, national origin and sex, also covered LGBTQ+ workers.

“Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids,” justice Neil Gorsuch wrote.

The three cases the court heard, Altitude Express Inc v Zarda, Bostock vClayton county, and RG & GR Harris Funeral Homes v EEOC concerned whether or not a federal ban on sex discrimination forbids employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers.

The Harris Funeral Homes case centered on Aimee Stephens, a trans woman fired after her boss claimed it would violate “God’s commands” if he allowed her “to deny [her] sex while acting as a representative of [the] organization.”.

Stephens’ case was the first trans rights case to come before the supreme court and came at a time when attacks on trans people have spiked and the federal government and conservative states have moved to erode the rights of trans people.

Donald Zarda and Gerald Bostock, both gay men, alleged they were fired from their jobs because of their sexual orientation.
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Before the ruling job discrimination against gay and transgender workers was still legal in much of the nation. Some 29 states currently allow some form of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in employment, housing and public accommodation.

This is big and very much good news in these troubled times, especially the fact that two very conservative justices like Neil Gorsuch and chief justice John Roberts were part of the majority.

You can read the opinion here.

Sudden reversal on sports and patriotism

The US military has made a determined effort to co-opt sports in America as a recruiting tool by exploiting patriotism. As Howard Bryant details in his book The Heritage, teams started having military salutes, singing of ‘God Bless America’, flyovers, recognition of troops, ‘surprise’ family reunions of returning troops, troops in VIP seats, etc. during games. While spectators and viewers were given the impression that these were done by the sports teams of their own volition as showing their patriotism, the reality was that the military was actually paying teams for all this. It was really crass, paid-for marketing.
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Trump’s appeals for money get even more pathetic

I am really enjoying being on Trump’s mailing list. I have mentioned before about how the emails I get from the Trump campaign are rather stupid. The latest one from his daughter-in-law Lara Trump is really quite pathetic since they seem to be resorting to the kinds of fund-raising tactics that one adopts when people are not that willing to support you.

Friend,

I need to ask you something.

Why haven’t you entered to win a chance to meet President Trump yet?

The President saw the list of Patriots who have already entered and he noticed that your name was MISSING.

He asked me to reach out to you because he REALLY wants to meet you and he can’t imagine having anyone else there with him.

Don’t forget, if you win:

  • We’ll cover your flight
  • We’ll make sure you have a very nice place to stay
  • You’ll get to bring a guest of your choice
  • You’ll get VIP ACCESS
  • And, you’ll even get to take a photo together.

All you have to do is contribute $42 by 11:59 PM TONIGHT and you’ll automatically be entered to win a FREE trip to meet President Trump.

If he “REALLY wants to meet [me] and he can’t imagine having anyone else there with him”, then he will have to do better that resort to the old lottery scam, since I cannot imagine that a notorious welsher reneger on debts is really going to pony up the money for this.

My demands for a meeting with him remain firm: Guaranteed prepaid flights to and from Washington, hotel accommodations, and lunch at a Mexican or Thai restaurant. Take it or leave it, Donald.

Violence-prone police

If you need more evidence of how easily police in the US are provoked to violence, just watch this video. We have a man walking alongside the police with no problem but as soon as he accidentally bumps into one of them while changing directions, they suddenly treat him as if he were a violent criminal who had attacked them.

Trump has lost the plot on racism

While Trump is definitely not the brightest bulb on the chandelier, one area where he seemed to be sure-footed was in his ability to use racism to rally people to him. His denigration of immigrants, his labeling of certain nations as ‘shit hole countries’, and his macho rhetoric were all not-so-veiled appeals to the racist instincts of his supporters that have stood him well. But the current protests over police brutality seem to have caught him flat-footed and isolated. The things that worked for him before no longer seem to do the trick.
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Sarah Cooper exposes Trump’s incoherence

One of the things that some people have noticed is that you have to read the transcripts of Trump’s utterances to fully appreciate how incoherent or crazy are the things he says. Peter Wade gives an example of this with the transcript of Trump’s response to question asked him by one of his Fox News sycophants who realizes that Trump has lost the plot entirely and tries vainly to get him back on point.

But comedian Sarah Cooper has found another way and made a couple of short online videos where she lip syncs to Trump’s words. Others have done this lip-syncing too but the way she does it really captures his craziness. In the above link, she explains to Lawrence O’Donnell how she does it.

Here is one of her clips.

Appeals Court strikes blow against qualified immunity for police

Jordan Smith recounts another shocking story of police murder from back in 2013 that should be better known.

It was roughly 11:30 p.m. on March 13, 2013, when Officer Paul Lehman spotted [Wayne] Jones walking along Queen Street in downtown Martinsburg. He wasn’t on the sidewalk, as city ordinance would require, so Lehman followed Jones, a 50-year-old black man who was homeless and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. After about a minute, Lehman honked, pulled over, and asked Jones for identification. Jones didn’t have any. Lehman asked if he had any weapons; Jones wasn’t sure what that meant. “Anything,” Lehman responded. “Guns, knives, clubs.” Jones did have a small fixed-blade knife tucked inside his right shirt sleeve, but he didn’t say that specifically, only that he had “something on him.”

From there, the situation quickly escalated. Lehman demanded that Jones get up against the car. Jones wanted to know why — “What do you want?” he asked — but Lehman didn’t explain. Instead, Lehman called for backup and, as Jones moved away, drew his Taser and fired. A second cop, Daniel North, rolled up on scene and also fired a Taser at Jones. Jones fled, running into the alcove in front of a bookstore down the street.

Before long, three more cops — William Staubs, Eric Neely, and Erik Herb — would arrive. Jones was struck in the neck, kicked, and put into a chokehold — the 4th Circuit opinion notes that “choking and gurgling sounds” can be heard in dashcam video recordings of the incident — before one of the officers realized that Jones had the small knife. The cops pulled away, forming a semicircle around him with their weapons drawn. Jones was limp and lying on his right side. Even though he was not moving, the cops demanded that Jones drop his knife. When he didn’t respond, all five fired their guns — a total of 22 rounds in two seconds. A majority of the shots hit Jones in the back and buttocks. He died at the scene.

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