Significant Supreme Court Ruling Issued Today (Re: Lgbtq)

[Duncan]

This happened in Canada in the 1960's with the RCMP. Gay RCMP members were believed to be targets for the Communists to turn against the Government...so hence they were fired. Well, the Government made an about face and forked over some cash to the members that were still alive, thank goodness

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lgbtq-purge-in-canada

[smac97]

22 minutes ago, Daniel2 said:

Nah... Justice Alito was entirely wrong, in his dissent. (I can assert the superiority of my opinion, too).

Except that Justice Alito has the law on his side.  You have your say-so on yours.

Thanks,

-Smac

[stemelbow]

39 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I think you’re both wrong. And there’s a CFR on the table. 
 

Dies the Church knowingly employ or retain in employment non-temple-worthy instructors in the seminaries and institutes, for example? Or workers at Beehive Clothing Mills (manufacturers of temple garments)? Or as temple engineers? I could go on. 

Why'd you add the "knowingly"?  I did not indicate where the people worked--for which department.  I'm simply saying, as a consequence of me working there for years a number of employees worked for the church and were not temple worthy.  I'm certain in a couple of instances, at least, they kept their secrets to themselves.  I'm curious though did it negatively hurt the church?  How would anyone know?

[Scott Lloyd]

3 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Why'd you add the "knowingly"?  I did not indicate where the people worked--for which department.  I'm simply saying, as a consequence of me working there for years a number of employees worked for the church and were not temple worthy.  I'm certain in a couple of instances, at least, they kept their secrets to themselves.  I'm curious though did it negatively hurt the church?  How would anyone know?

I added “knowingly” because it more precisely conveys my meaning. If some unworthy workers got jobs or retained jobs they shouldn’t have had and got away with it, that doesn’t mean the government forced the Church to employ them contrary to the Church’s policy (the original assertion). 
 

Are you now saying you can’t fulfill the CFR? Well, that’s one down and one to go. We’ll see what Peppermint Patty has to say, if anything.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Scott Lloyd

[Daniel2]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Except that Justice Alito has the law on his side.  You have your say-so on yours.

Thanks,

-Smac

Nonsense.  “The law” is now decisively on my side, and disagrees with both Alito’s angry dissent and your contrary opinion.

It doesn’t matter how legally sound or accurate you think your or his reasoning is. His and yours are in the overruled 1/3 minority dissent.... I agree with the 2/3 majority ruling. Not to mention the body of precedent set from the clear majority of the lower and appellate courts, which likewise ruled in favor of the majority’s and my understanding, which (again) is now the law.

I have all of that. For all your legal training and experience, all YOU are left with is his and your “say-so.” 

Edited June 16, 2020 by Daniel2

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Daniel2 said:

Nonsense.  “The law” is now decisively on my side, and disagrees with both Alito’s angry dissent and your contrary opinion.

It doesn’t matter how legally sound or accurate you think your or his reasoning is. His and yours are in the overruled 1/3 minority dissent.... I agree with the 2/3 majority ruling. Not to mention the body of precedent set from the clear majority of the lower and appellate courts, which likewise ruled in favor of the majority’s and my understanding, which (again) is now the law.

I have all of that. For all your legal training and experience, all YOU are left with is his and your “say-so.” 

SCOTUS has been wrong before. Ever hear of the Dred Scott case?

[Daniel2]

33 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

SCOTUS has been wrong before. Ever hear of the Dred Scott case?

Until proven otherwise, it’s legally binding.

In this case, Congress and the House are entirely empowered to write different legislation overturning the court’s finding, if they believe the court got it wrong. 

I won’t hold my breath. You’re welcome to, if you’d like. 

Edited June 16, 2020 by Daniel2

[bsjkki]

Interesting take on this case. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/06/15/why_roberts_gorsuch_voted_with_liberals_on_lgbt_case_143456.html

"Instead, the argument went like this: Imagine a workplace with three employees: Amy, Bill and Chuck. Amy declares her love for Chuck. The next day, Bill declares his love for Chuck. The argument was that the employer can fire both Amy and Bill for violating a prohibition against workplace romances.

What the employer cannot do is fire Bill because of a workplace prohibition on same-sex romances. The reason has nothing to do with Bill’s sexual orientation, at least as such. Instead, it has to do with Bill’s sex. Firing Bill but not Amy says that a woman may declare her love for a man in the office, but a male may not. The employer is inherently creating a categorization based on sex, which the Civil Rights Act flatly prohibits (in fact, the CRA does spell out some instances where employers can discriminate on the basis of sex, the so-called bona fide occupational qualification exception, but the fact that Congress made some exceptions but did not also spell out an exception based on sexual orientation works against conservatives here)."

 

[Scott Lloyd]

22 minutes ago, Daniel2 said:

Until proven otherwise, it’s legally binding.

in this case, I won’t hold my breath. You’re welcome to. 

Legally binding is not the equivalent of right. The Dred Scott decision was legally binding for a while. It ruled that no person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States. Look it up. 

Edited June 16, 2020 by Scott Lloyd

[Daniel2]

2 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Legally binding is not the equivalent of right. The Dred Scott decision was legally binding for a while. 

Yeah, but unlike the Dred Scott case, in this case, the court got it right.

I’ll be happy to eat crow if I’m proven wrong. But I earnestly believe I won’t be. 😉

[bsjkki]

Personally, I hope the religious exemption holds but otherwise feel this case was decided on a legally sound basis. I don't want my gay or transgendered friends fired from their jobs. I think if this case had been decided a different way, it would have caused a political disaster. If you don't think politics influences court opinions, you haven't been paying attention.

[Scott Lloyd]

1 minute ago, Daniel2 said:

Yeah, but unlike the Dred Scott case, in this case, the court got it right.

I’ll be happy to eat crow if I’m proven wrong. But I earnestly believe I won’t be. 😉

The point is, your declaring that “the court got it right” does not make it so. Plenty of people in the 1860s would have said the same about the Dred Scott decision. 

[Daniel2]

2 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The point is, your declaring that “the court got it right” does not make it so. Plenty of people in the 1860s would have said the same about the Dred Scott decision. 

True.... but until proven otherwise, the court’s ruling (per the majority) is legally correct. And that is MY point. You and Smac and others can assert the court “got it wrong,” but unless it’s overturned, the law sides with the majority’s view (which is also my view) as legally correct and applicable. Which, from a legal/real-world-applicability perspective, is all that matters. 

[Scott Lloyd]

6 minutes ago, Daniel2 said:

True.... but until proven otherwise, the court’s ruling (per the majority) is legally correct. And that is MY point. You and Smac and others can assert the court “got it wrong,” but unless it’s overturned, the law sides with the majority’s view (which is also my view) as legally correct and applicable. Which, from a legal/real-world-applicability perspective, is all that matters. 

So it doesn’t matter to you, then, that the “legally correct” position in the United States was that persons of African descent could not claim citizenship. 
 

I’m not arguing that the SCOTUS  decision is the law of the land. I accept that it is and I intend to abide by it. But I don’t have to pay obeisance to it. 

[Scott Lloyd]

For what it’s worth, it appears Daniel Peterson has taken a position similar to Smac’s:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2020/06/on-monday-mornings-supreme-court-ruling.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=share_bar&utm_campaign=share_bar_facebook

[bsjkki]

Interesting tweet thread on this topic.

https://twitter.com/PaoloSandro2/status/1272559753164722178?s=20

 

[smac97]

8 hours ago, Daniel2 said:

Until proven otherwise, it’s legally binding.

Ah.  So you would have counted yourself a vibrant supporter of Plessy v. Ferguson between 1896 and 1954?  Because it was "legally binding?"

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

A pretty good analysis:

Quote

In what dissenting Justice Samuel Alito called one of the most “brazen abuse{s}" 

of the Supreme Court’s authority, a six-member majority of the court led by Justice Neil Gorsuch has rewritten Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include sexual orientation and gender identity in the definition of “sex.”

Why bother trying to pass the proposed Equality Act when you can get the justices to make law for you?

Title VII prohibits an employer from failing or refusing “to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual … because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 

...

In Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which was combined with two other cases, Gorsuch wrote that the straightforward application of the terms in Title VII, according to their ordinary public meaning at the time of its enactment, means that an employer violates the law when it intentionally fires an individual based in part on sex. 

In a logical and legal leap, Gorsuch then argued that includes sexual orientation and gender identity, since those concepts are related to sex.

Thus, Gorsuch reasoned, it means the employer is treating individuals differently because of their sex. An employer cannot escape liability by showing that it treats men and women comparably as groups. The employer has violated the law even if it subjects all male and female homosexual and transgender employees to the same treatment. 

Gorsuch dismissed as irrelevant the historical fact that none of the legislators who passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 would have ever expected or contemplated that Title VII’s ban on employment discrimination on the basis of sex would apply to a man hired by a funeral home who then told his new employer, the R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Home, that he planned to “live and work full-time as a woman.”

I am deeply concerned about judges in 2020 retroactively reading their preferences into a law that was legislated more than 50 years ago.  This is a dangerous precedent, and people (like our own Daniel) who are presently crowing about this judicial activism will likely not be so happy when that activism turns on them.

But then, that may not happen.  Honestly, I hope it doesn't.  I hope that such egregious misuse of judicial authority is never used to re-write legislation to suit my preferences.

Quote

The majority opinion by Gorsuch upending more than five decades of prior precedents was only 33 pages long. Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, filed a blistering dissent in which he said that “there is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation.” He pointed out that the majority’s claim that it is “merely enforcing the terms of the statute” is “preposterous.” 

He's quite right.

Quote

As Alito undisputedly says, “if every single American had been surveyed in 1964, it would have been hard to find any who thought that discrimination because of sex meant discrimination because of sexual orientation—not to mention gender identity, a concept that was essentially unknown at the time.” 

The majority tries to “pass off its decision” as just an application of the term “sex” in Title VII, claiming it is applying the textualism championed by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. But according to Alito, that claim and the majority’s opinion “is like a pirate ship.” He added:

It sails under a textualist flag, but what it actually represents is a theory of statutory interpretation that Justice Scalia excoriated—the theory that courts should ‘update’ old statutes so that they better reflect the current values of society.

Alito said that the majority’s “arrogance” is “breathtaking,” since “there is not a shred of evidence that any Member of Congress interpreted the statutory text that way when Title VII was enacted.”

Again, Alito is quite correct here.  

Quote

Neither “sexual orientation,” nor “gender identity” appear on the list of five specified grounds for discrimination in Title VII, and the majority’s “argument is not only arrogant, it is wrong,” he wrote.  The terms “sex,” “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity” are “different concepts,” and neither of the two latter terms are “tied to either of the biological sexes.”
...

The majority is “usurping the constitutional authority of the other branches” of government and has taken the latest congressional bill on this topic and “issued it under the guise of statutory interpretation.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh also filed a dissenting opinion, in which he wrote that “this case boils down to one fundamental question:  Who decides?” 

Well, in a Constitutional Republic, it's supposed to be the legislature who "decides," who writes the laws, not a handful of unelected, life-tenured jurists.

Quote

Kavanaugh lauded the “extraordinary vision, tenacity, and grit” of the gay and lesbian community for working “hard for many decades to achieve equal treatment in fact and in law.”  But, he added, under separation of powers, “it was Congress’s role, not this Court’s, to amend Title VII.”

Alito made it clear that the “updating desire to which the Court succumbs no doubt rises from humane and generous impulses.” But the “authority of this Court is limited to saying what the law is.” 

That is precisely correct.  But for some folks (including, it seems, some on this very board, this very thread even), that doesn't matter.

The ends justify the means, right?

Quote

In their dissents, Alito, Thomas, and Kavanaugh got it right, and the majority got it wrong. The word “sex”— still today as when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964—refers to our biological reality as male or female. It doesn’t refer to our sexual orientations or malleable gender identities as some see it.

If those terms were contained within Title VII, there would have been no need for Congress to repeatedly try to amend the law to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes.

In an act of judicial activism, a majority of the Supreme Court has simply legislated from the bench and amended the statute itself.  

Congress has not legislated such an outcome, and it was wrong for the court to usurp lawmakers’ authority by imposing such an extreme policy on our nation without the consent of the governed.

Sadly, some folks don't care about getting "the consent of the governed."

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited June 16, 2020 by smac97

[juliann]

17 hours ago, provoman said:

 

I read the majority as saying gay, trans, straight, and any other orientation related to "sex" ( male or female) is now a protected class. I base this on my understanding of the Court saying that orientation based considerations necessarily relie on notions of male or female.

Was transgender defined? Does this ruling allow for men to merely declare themselves women while presenting as men?

[stemelbow]

12 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I added “knowingly” because it more precisely conveys my meaning. If some unworthy workers got jobs or retained jobs they shouldn’t have had and got away with it, that doesn’t mean the government forced the Church to employ them contrary to the Church’s policy (the original assertion). 
 

Are you now saying you can’t fulfill the CFR? Well, that’s one down and one to go. We’ll see what Peppermint Patty has to say, if anything.

You demand a CFR for a claim I never made?  Let's see, I say one thing, you demand a CFR for something else.  Sound reasonable?  

[provoman]

1 hour ago, juliann said:

Was transgender defined? Does this ruling allow for men to merely declare themselves women while presenting as men?

I am not sure if it was defined, and not sure if "presenting" was part of the decision. 

On  similar issue, I do know of a government entity that no longer uses gender specific bathrooms in new buildings. The bathrooms are individual rather than a big room with individual stalls. 

[juliann]

12 minutes ago, provoman said:

I am not sure if it was defined, and not sure if "presenting" was part of the decision. 

 

Transgenderism is going to be the flashpoint. It is unbelievably sloppy if this ruling doesn’t deal very directly with what that is. 

[smac97]

Here's a (now ironic) quote from Justice Gorsuch's book, A Republic, If You Can Keep it:

Quote

"Textualism offers a known and knowable methodology for judges to determine impartially and fix what the law is, not simply declare what it ought to be -- a method to discern the written law's content without extraneous value judgments about persons or policies." 

Justice Gorsuch's opinion is not textualist.  He did precisely what he criticizes above.  Regarding the Civil Rights Act, he "simply declare{d} what it ought to be" by way of "extraneous value judgments about persons or policies."

Justice Kagan, while not walking the textualist/originalist walk, nevertheless acknowledged how it works (from the same link) :

Quote

Kagan told an audience at Harvard in 2015 that Scalia would go down in history as one of the most "important, historic figures of the court. She said the primary reason was that Scalia reshaped the way judges approached statutory interpretation by insisting upon a sharp focus on the words on the page.

She noted that the "textualism" approach could lead to different outcomes, but that Scalia insisted that the analysis start --at the very least --with the text and structure of the law and not something like the intent of Congress or committee reports and drafting history .

"We are all textualists now," Kagan declared.

No, "we're" not.  

A bit more:

Quote

At oral arguments in the cases concerning Title VII, Kagan and Gorsuch appeared on the same page.

"For many years, the lodestar of this Court's statutory interpretation has been the text of a statute," she told Solicitor General Noel Francisco, representing the Trump administration that was challenging efforts to expand the reach of the Civil Rights Act

She said the text of Title VII that bars discrimination "because of" sex seemed crystal clear.

"Did you discriminate against somebody," she asked rhetorically, "because of sex?"

"Yes you did," she said, answering her own question. "Because you fired the person because this was a man who loved other men."

Francisco, a former Scalia clerk, fired back. He said that it was his side that was making a "straightforward textual argument."

For Francisco it was simple, "the law distinguishes between between sex and sexual orientation."

"Sex means whether you're male or female, not whether you're gay or straight," he said.

Yep.

Quote

Trump's other nominee, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, dissented from Gorsuch's majority opinion

While "policy arguments" to amend the law "are very weighty, Kavanaugh wrote, and while he agreed that "gay and lesbian Americans cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth" he could not side with Gorsuch's interpretation

"We are judges, not Members of Congress," Kavanaugh wrote, adding "our role is not to make or amend the law."

But that's exactly was Justice Gorsuch and the others did.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Scott Lloyd]

17 hours ago, stemelbow said:

So are people concerned the Church may one day be forced to employ someone who is LGBTQ?  News flash...it already has and likely does. 

 

17 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The concern is that the Church may one day be forced to employ non-temple-worthy people in positions for which temple worthiness is an essential requirement. 
 

Do try to keep up, stemelbow. 

 

17 hours ago, Peppermint Patty said:

News flash...it already has and likely does.

 

16 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

In positions requiring temple worthiness? Prove it. 
 

And we’ll call this a CFR. 

 

15 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Newsflash to that.  Already has happened.  That is to say, a number of employees former and current have been unworthy.  Did it hurt the church or cause you an issue?  

 

Oh sorry peppermint patty,  you beat me to it.

 

15 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I think you’re both wrong. And there’s a CFR on the table. 
 

Does the Church knowingly employ or retain in employment non-temple-worthy instructors in the seminaries and institutes, for example? Or workers at Beehive Clothing Mills (manufacturers of temple garments)? Or as temple engineers? I could go on. 

 

14 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Why'd you add the "knowingly"?  I did not indicate where the people worked--for which department.  I'm simply saying, as a consequence of me working there for years a number of employees worked for the church and were not temple worthy.  I'm certain in a couple of instances, at least, they kept their secrets to themselves.  I'm curious though did it negatively hurt the church?  How would anyone know?

 

14 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I added “knowingly” because it more precisely conveys my meaning. If some unworthy workers got jobs or retained jobs they shouldn’t have had and got away with it, that doesn’t mean the government forced the Church to employ them contrary to the Church’s policy (the original assertion). 
 

Are you now saying you can’t fulfill the CFR? Well, that’s one down and one to go. We’ll see what Peppermint Patty has to say, if anything.

 

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

You demand a CFR for a claim I never made?  Let's see, I say one thing, you demand a CFR for something else.  Sound reasonable?  

Please review the above history. You shot off a response to me without paying proper attention to what I had posted. I said the concern is that the Church might one day BE FORCED TO EMPLOY a non-temple-worthy worker in a position for which temple worthiness is required. You claimed that it has already happened. My CFR was for you to document that it has already happened, i.e. that that the Church has already been subjected to such force. 

[Duncan]

Just now, Scott Lloyd said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please review the above history. You shot off a response to me without paying proper attention to what I had posted. I said the concern is that the Church might one day BE FORCED TO EMPLOY a non-temple-worthy worker in a position for which temple worthiness is required. You claimed that it has already happened. My CFR was for you to document that it has already happened, i.e. that that the Church has already been subjected to such force. 

is it bad to employ someone qualified without a recommend? members of the Church hire nonmembers all the time, the Church here is building a Temple, no one is a member, they follow the rules of the site but none of it has to do with worthiness. In other places of the world maybe a recommend is required to work at a Temple site but in most places they don't have the membership to sustain a construction crew,like here for example. I can't think of a single member employed in construction if there are it's not enough for them to construct the Temple.