The Trump administration's decision to challenge an interpretation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that says private companies can't fire someone because of their sexual orientation feels mean-spirited, blatantly discriminatory and, no less bizarre, like an inexplicable attempt to revive a battle that conservatives have already lost. A massive survey of more than 40,000 Americans released in March by the Public Religion Research Institute found solid to large majorities in every state in the union opposed to allowing discrimination in housing, public accommodations and the workplace based on sexual orientation. Overall, 56 percent of Republicans agreed, including 63 percent of young Republicans.
The nominal reason the Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to weigh in is based on legal parsing: the claim that the 1964 law's language banning discrimination "because of sex" is narrowly focused on gender discrimination. But a simple test establishes why an interpretation that includes sexual orientation is appropriate. Should employees be allowed to treat significant numbers of men and women differently solely because they are attracted to members of their own gender? No--because stereotyping of individuals based on their gender is of course gender discrimination.
Given that the Supreme Court has upheld gay marriage as a civil right--and that President Donald Trump has said that Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg's marriage to a man is "absolutely fine"--it's plain Trump sees this stand less as a principled defense of strict constructionism than as an attempt to please the socially conservative evangelical voters.
In 2004, President George W. Bush won re-election by courting the same group after Republicans got ballot measures opposing same-sex marriage on the ballot in 11 states, goosing turnout. Thankfully, 15 years later, more Americans grasp that seeking to demonize and allow punishment of members of the LBGTQ+ community simply because of who they are is repugnant. A lot has changed since the Civil Rights Act. You know what hasn't? An honest day's work should be just that.
Editorial on 08/28/2019