Workplace Equality Wins!

It’s beyond-official, America (at least, it better be): The Supreme Court of the United States ruled today, in a surprising 6-3 decision, that you may not, cannot discriminate against the queer community in the workplace ever again. You couldn’t yesterday (so fuck you for trying); you cannot today; and you cannot tomorrow – so don’t.

In English: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers are protected by federal anti-discrimation law; you may not, cannot fire LGBT employees for their sexual orientation.

Back. It. Up.

The decision comes 11 days short of five years after the court legalized same-sex marriage, thus making marriage equality the law of the land. Evidently, more than half the states in the union still do not cover sexual orientation and gender identity through their own anti-discrimination laws, which impacts more than 4 million queer workers, you see.

Justice Not Merrick Garland Neil Gorsuch, a Trump-regime appointee, and conservative, swing-vote Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberal judges in the 6-3 majority, interpreting that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, also applies to sexual orientation and gender identity. Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion that, “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.”

Our never-ending hella-gay thanks go out to the late Aimee Stephens, who was fired from a Michigan funeral home after she told her employer that she planned to live and work as a woman; to Gerald Bostock, who was sacked from his job with Clayton County, Ga., after he joined a gay softball league; and to the late Donald Zarda, who was fired as a skydiving instructor in New York after he revealed his sexual orientation, for pursuing this case for justice and equality in Bostock v. Clayton County, now a landmark queer win. (Following his passing in 2014, Zarda’s family honored his lead by staying in the fight. Bostock v. Clayton County includes Stephens’ complaint and Zarda’s, too.)

Justices Samuel Alito and that waste of space and air Brett Kavanaugh, of course, dissented – but fuck them, this is not about what they had to say today.

Do stay the course and stay vigilant. The haters are gonna hate and keep on hatin’. But we shall rise.

Now let’s👏🏽get👏🏽the Equality Act through the Senate, already, so that any discrimination loophole left can be closed for good.