Supreme Court Considers Whether Civil Rights Act Protects L.G.B.T. Workers

There is this New York Times article that I came across yesterday and it’s titled “Supreme Court Considers Whether Civil Rights Act Protects L.G.B.T. Workers.” The article covers two cases; both of which dealing with workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Supreme Court is trying to decide whether or not Title VII of the Civil Rights Act applies to LGBT employees. 

The reason it got my attention was because I couldn’t tell whether this was supposed to be some sort of clickbait or if it was an actual thing. Had you asked me before I read the article, I would have told you that I don’t even know why this case made it all the way to the Supreme Court because I couldn’t see a way how sexual orientation and gender identity could be a basis for termination. Those two things have nothing to do with a person’s ability to do their job.  

I went into the article with that mindset, hard-pressed to believe that wasn’t the belief shared by the majority. After reading it I can now understand why this case made news. Both sides of the argument made very good cases and shared hypotheticals that will definitely made me think. This issue wasn’t as cut and dry as I had thought, and part of the difficulty came from the fact that no matter what side the Court picks there will always be some group of people that will be negatively impacted by the decision. There are compelling arguments for both sides, what are your thoughts? 

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