Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, associate publisher. Coleman is a legal, political and investigative reporter out of Cleveland, Ohio
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM, WASHINGTON, D.C.-The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled 6-3 in a historic decision that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also extends protections to gay, lesbian and transgender employees who can now fight back through lawsuits in federal court and the pursuit of redress in any other applicable legal or administrative venues in response to workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation.
It is a stunning defeat for the Trump administration, which fought tooth and nail against federally-mandated job protections for the LGBT community.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark Civil Rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and per Monday's court ruling, sexual orientation.
It also prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, and racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations.
On the high court bench since 2017, controversial Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Republican and a President Donald Trump appointee, authored the majority opinion, which was intriguing, pundits said, particularly since Gorsuch's nomination to the bench was vigorously opposed by Congressional Democrats and scores of Civil Rights and women's rights organizations who fear his stances on reproductive rights are dangerous, and contrary to Roe v. Wade.
"In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee," said Justice Gorsuch in writing for the majority relative to the high court's decision to stand behind the LGBT community as the upcoming November presidential election, which will pit President Trump against Democratic nominee Joe Biden, nears.
Gorsuch joined Chief Justice John Roberts, a George Bush appointee and often a swing vote, and the four liberal justices, two of them Barack Obama appointees, in voting in favor of workplace protections for the LGBT community.
Justices Brett Kavaunaugh, also a Trump appointee, and a Supreme Court justice since 2018, and Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, the only Black on the nation's highest bench, dissented.
The cases that brought Monday's Supreme Court decision stem from three separate lawsuits out of Michigan, New York and Georgia in which the plaintiffs all alleged work place discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Monday's decision is likely the most significant decision for the LGBT community since same sex marriage in states across the nation, pushed by then president Obama, was deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court in June of 2015, the court, in Obergefell v. Hodges, striking down any standing marriage bans across 50 states and also ordering states to accept out-of -state marriage licenses.
Blacks, led by the NAACP, are torn on whether sexual orientation should qualify under the Civil Rights Act as a protective class for American workers facing workplace discrimination because they are gay, lesbian or transgender, some saying it minimizes the relevance of racial discrimination against the Black community, a community still recovering from the vestiges of slavery and decades of Black disenfranchisement.
That stance in segments of the Black community against same sex marriage is also often rooted in religion as America's Black clergy leaders traditionally oppose same sex marriage, in spite of it being Obama's signature legislation that later passed constitutional muster by the Supreme Court and is now the law of the land.
But most Blacks, many of them Democrats, back same sex marriage as do some 62 percent of Americans in general, a Pew Study found, only 32 percent of those surveyed saying they oppose same sex marriage.
Republicans as a whole still remain lukewarm to nothing but heterosexuality, Monday's unprecedented Supreme Court decision a departure from so many conservative-leaning decisions by the court on issues ranging from property rights and affirmative action, to voting and reproductive rights, not to mention gun violence and the dismantling of Civil Rights protections by the U.S. Department of Education in place to protect the nation's poor and Black public school children.
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Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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