Supreme Court ruling is like pot of gold at end of Rainbow Flag

Jun. 16--The minute she read the headline about the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark civil rights decision barring job discrimination against LGBT people, Peg Corley turned to her partner.

"Good news, honey," Corley, executive director of the LGBTQ Center Orange County, said on Monday morning, June 15. "The Supreme Court is taking a stand to protect our rights!"

Soon, text messages started flooding Corley's phone, adding to the euphoria felt by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community all around Southern California. That joy, shared publicly on social media and in private conversations, echoed the response to another historic Supreme Court ruling on LGBTQ rights -- the legalization of gay marriage nearly five years ago on June 26, 2015.

"LGBTQ protection at work is a very good sign that the highest court in our nation understands basic, human rights apply to us all," Corley said.

The 6-3 court decision involved discrimination cases filed on behalf of two gay men and a transgender woman. The four liberal justices on the Supreme Court were joined by conservative benchmates Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch, who penned the majority opinion that invokes the Title VII provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Gorsuch wrote: "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."

Conservative court observers were displeased.

"The Supreme Court undermined the rule of law today," said Tom Fitton, president of the group Judicial Watch in a statement. "In expanding the ban of sex discrimination in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include sexual orientation and gender identity, the court engaged in an abuse of power by legislating from the bench."

The outcome surprised many in the LGBTQ community, who were bracing for a letdown.

"Frankly, I'm both shocked and thrilled," said Terra Russell-Slavin, Director of Policy and Community Building for the Los Angeles LGBT Center and its 10 offices throughout Los Angeles County. "I did not expect this conservative leaning Supreme Court to rule the way it did today. But I'm ecstatic that it did.

"It's the right decision."

But, she added, "this should have already happened."

The hope is that there will be more such decisions. Advocates noted that tug-of-war over LGBTQ rights is taking place even as protests against police treatment of black people is prompting a national conversation about human rights in America.

"We must continue to work to close critical gaps in nondiscrimination protections," said the Rev. Benita Ramsey of Unity Fellowship Church IE and Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance, a San Bernardino-based organization serving LGBTQ youth in the Inland Empire.

"Even after today's decision, Black LGBTQ people will still face disproportionate discrimination across their lives. The legal rights of all LGBTQ people will not be secure until we end the systemic ways in which racism is used to oppress Black people and other people of color -- at work, in the streets, in the voting booth, and elsewhere."

Alongside the celebration -- largely virtual because of concerns over public gatherings in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic -- there remain outstanding issues of bias and lack of legal protections for LGBTQ people. Russel-Slavin and others said they hope to see equality in areas such as healthcare, adoptions, and access to federally funded programs.

Russell-Slavin pointed to hoped-for passage of the Equality Act, which would amend existing civil rights legislation, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act, and specify sweeping inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity under existing laws. In May of 2019 the House passed the Equality Act, in a bipartisan effort, but the Senate has yet to act on it.

"That's what's next," Russell-Slavin said of enacting the Equality Act. "We need the Senate to pass the Equality act."

But would President Trump sign such legislation should it land on the Resolute Desk? Recent actions don't encourage LGBTQ advocates.

A new rule announced on Friday, June 12, by the Trump Administration rolls back healthcare protections that prevented discrimination against transgender people by doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies. Civil rights protections under the Affordable Care Act of 2010 regarding federally-funded programs that were broadly interpreted by the Obama Administration have been narrowed.

The back-to-back whiplash of Friday's policy decision and Monday's court ruling leave Miliana Singh, a transgender woman who recounts discrimination in the workplace and in healthcare services, feeling bittersweet.

"I'm happy and excited. But at the same time, as a transgender person, I know that healthcare protections were revoked," said Singh, 30, who lives in Riverside County. "It puts me in a weird juxtaposition."

Singh, originally from New York, moved to Florida as a teen, where she underwent her transition. She said, while there, she faced job discrimination as both a black woman and a transgender woman. Singh would like to see the nation adopt healthcare protections that California, her home since 2015, provides to patients in state-funded health programs -- a commitment reinforced in a letter dated Saturday by the California Department of Health Care Services.

"This commitment is undiminished by recent changes to federal regulations," the statement said, in reference to the action taken by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to finalize the rule that eliminated the protections against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

But perhaps the Supreme Court ruling will be a catalyst for more sweeping change, said Singh, who works for the LGBTQ Center of Orange County in Santa Ana, where she has been the healthcare and trans services coordinator since May 2018.

"I hope that this fuels the fight to get inclusive healthcare for everyone nationwide."

Others suggested the ruling might signal that the Supreme Court isn't as conservative as billed. Jason Whitehead, an associate professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach, called the decision "a remarkable story of a surprising turn of events."

Whitehead, whose expertise includes legal and judicial politics, said he was less surprised by Chief Justice Roberts than by Justice Gorsuch, a judicial "textualist" who bases his interpretation of law on the actual words in the law. In this case, "sex" turned out to be the operative word even though legislators in 1964 could not have envisioned that word applying to LGBTQ folks 56 years later, Whitehead said.

But Whitehead, author of "Judging Judges: Values and the Rule of Law," said it remains to be seen whether Monday's decision portends a developing split among the conservative justices that will apply in upcoming cases, including some involving religious freedom and abortion rights, that hinge on interpretations of equal protection rather than legislation.

"These things are hard to predict," Whitehead said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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