Workers Cannot Be Fired For Being Gay Or Transgender Supreme Court Rules

It was ruled on Monday, June 15th, that workers may not be fired simply due to the fact of them being gay or transgender by the Supreme Court.

The ruling is a huge win for LGBTQ+ activists.

Ultimately, the vote was passed 6 to 3, with "Justice Neil M. Gorsuch writing the majority opinion", the New York Times reports.

The case was brought up in relation to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The case was made that discrimination against people based on "sex" in the aforementioned civil rights act also applies to sexual orientation and gender identity.

Cases were made by several workers who had been terminated from their jobs as a result of discrimination based upon their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Many people have heralded the decision as a huge step forward and a big win for the LGBTQ+ community. The American Civil Liberties Union said:

"[This is] a huge win for LGBT rights [...] People must be judged by their abilities, not by their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity," in a statement to Newsweek.

In certain areas across the US, there were local laws preventing discrimination of this kind in the workplace. However, now there is an official federal law explicitly prohibiting this kind of discrimination across the US in the workplace.

While this is a big win, it is also unsettling that it has taken until 2020 for such a law to be passed.

h/t: New York Times