Section 7

Citation: Section 7
Parent Document: Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2020-06-15
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4760997/bostock-v-clayton-county/ ↗

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To be sure, as Judge Lynch appropriately recognized, it
is “understandable” that those seeking legal protection for
gay people “search for innovative arguments to classify
workplace bias against gays as a form of discrimination
that is already prohibited by federal law. But the argu-
ments advanced by the majority ignore the evident mean-
ing of the language of Title VII, the social realities that dis-
tinguish between the kinds of biases that the statute sought
to exclude from the workplace from those it did not, and the
distinctive nature of anti-gay prejudice.” 883 F. 3d, at 162
(dissenting opinion).
   The majority opinion insists that it is not rewriting or up-
dating Title VII, but instead is just humbly reading the text
of the statute as written. But that assertion is tough to ac-
cept. Most everyone familiar with the use of the English
language in America understands that the ordinary mean-
ing of sexual orientation discrimination is distinct from the
ordinary meaning of sex discrimination. Federal law dis-
tinguishes the two. State law distinguishes the two. This
Court’s cases distinguish the two. Statistics on discrimina-
tion distinguish the two. History distinguishes the two.
Psychology distinguishes the two. Sociology distinguishes
the two. Human resources departments all over America
distinguish the two. Sports leagues distinguish the two.
Political groups distinguish the two. Advocacy groups dis-
tinguish the two. Common parlance distinguishes the two.
Common sense distinguishes the two.
   As a result, many Americans will not buy the novel inter-
pretation unearthed and advanced by the Court today.
Many will no doubt believe that the Court has unilaterally
rewritten American vocabulary and American law—a “stat-
utory amendment courtesy of unelected judges.” Hively,
853 F. 3d, at 360 (Sykes, J., dissenting). Some will surmise
that the Court succumbed to “the natural desire that be-
guiles judges along with other human beings into imposing
their own views of goodness, truth, and justice upon others.”
26             BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY KAVANAUGH, J., dissenting

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