The Supreme Court ruled Monday that civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender workers from discrimination. The landmark ruling is a historic and stunning victory for the LGBT community.
The vote was 6-3, and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion. Also in favor were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as well as Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
It’s an especially big win both in Daviess County and in Kentucky, one of the states without a statewide fairness ordinance — though it has been up for much debate at both levels of government. Daviess County failed to pass a local ordinance with a 2-2 vote in early April.
Deanna Endicott-Smith, who has fought for the nondiscrimination ordinance since July 2019, was pleased with the Supreme Court decision.
“Really just relief,” she said of the emotional reaction. “It’s been something they’ve been pushing back for a while. For them to finally rule on that — and in a 6-3 favor — it’s just a huge weight off our shoulders. It’s showing that our Supreme Court is leaning more into extending all American freedoms to everybody.”
The Supreme Court ruling does not address all the issues that would have been covered by the proposed ordinance in Daviess County.
The Court only ruled on a case concerning Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars employment discrimination based on race, religion, national origin and sex. The Court ruled “sex” includes the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity.
“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,” Gorsuch wrote in the decision.
It does not address LGBT protections for issues like housing and public accommodations — both of which were part of the proposed ordinance in Daviess County.
“What they did was set a precedent,” Endicott-Smith said of the ruling. “They said that discrimnation based on if they’re homosexual or tansgender is discrimination on sex. By that precedent, we could see that extending out to all forms of non-discrimination laws throughout the country.”
Judge-Executive Al Mattingly, who voted in favor of the Daviess County ordinance, said he was happy for what the ruling means for the local LGBT community.
“(The Supreme Court) saw it worthwhile to give a minority in our community the same equal rights that everybody else enjoyed,” he said. “I’m pleased for our LGBTQ community. I think it’s a good day, from what I read from friends who have texted me to make sure that I saw it.”
County Commissioners George Wathen and Charlie Castlen both voted against the Daviess County ordinance. Castlen declined to comment on the ruling. Wathen said since they knew the Supreme Court was hearing the cases, he didn’t think the county should have ever gotten involved.
“(It was a reason) I gave in the very beginning that we should not have addressed the issue as a local government because we knew that they were going to rule on it,” Wathen said. “What we should have done was waited for them, but that’s OK.”
Wathen added he doesn’t expect the ruling to have much impact locally because he doesn’t think LGBT discrimination is a big issue here.
“I don’t see (the ruling) as a big effect,” he said. “As I said before, I really don’t believe that we have a problem in Daviess County with discrimination in employment with our LGBT community.”
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented in the case. They said it should be left to Congress rather than the Court to draft protections for LGBT people.
“Many will applaud today’s decision because they agree on policy grounds with the Court’s updating of Title VII. But the question in these cases is not whether discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity should be outlawed. The question is whether Congress did that in 1964. It indisputably did not,” Alito wrote.
Kavanaugh acknowledged it was an important victory for the LGBTQ community, noting they’ve had to battle steep odds for decades. Still, he wrote that it should not be up to the Court to make such a decision.
“They have advanced powerful policy arguments and can take pride in today’s result. Under the Constitution’s separation of powers, however, I believe that it was Congress’s role, not this Court’s, to amend Title VII. I, therefore, must respectfully dissent from the Court’s judgment.”
Endicott-Smith said the fight is long from over, but the decision helps pave the way for more change.
“Honestly, I’ve always voiced that this change is inevitable. Protection for LGBT people is the future,” she said. “It’s going to happen. Whether they’re going to go with the times or not is up to them.”
