Perspectives: Marquee LBGT case has Minnesota roots.

Byline: Marshall H. Tanick

"Is not sex in play here; and isn't that enough."

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch (October 8, 2019)

It's unusual for the U.S. Supreme Court to begin its term with one of its marquee cases. It's even more infrequent for the high court to hear a case involving transgender rights it's never done so before now.

But these two rarities coalesced early last month when, on the second day if its 2019-20 term, the justices spent a couple of hours pondering and waxing about high profile litigation concerning the employment rights of transgender individuals as well as gays and lesbians.

The LGBT litigation that helped initiate the court's current session is one of its marquee matters. The case, a combination of three separate lawsuits, addresses whether the federal anti- discrimination employment laws extend to lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender individuals. Although the trio of consolidated actions come from different states (Georgia, New York, and Michigan), the overlapping issue they raise has its roots here in Minnesota.

The joint lawsuits involve two gay men and one transsexual who allege they were fired from their eclectic respective jobs as a social worker, skydiving instructor, and funeral director due to their sexual identities. They each sued for wrongful termination under Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights Act, a 1964 measure that bars discrimination in the workplace due to "sex," and a number of other personal characteristics and features, such as race and religion. Two of them prevailed in preliminary rulings allowing their cases to proceed, while the other was thrown out of court.

The issue before the high court in each of the cases is whether the act only covers traditional male-female gender discrimination or applies more broadly to adverse actions by employers attributable to the sexual characteristics of the effected employees.

Arguments advanced

One argument advanced by employee advocates and seemingly supported by the four liberal, Democratic appointees on the court, is that the measure should be construed broadly to effectuate its purpose of proscribing bias in the workplace unrelated to job performance. They note that societal views of sexuality have changed since the act went into effect two generations ago, and the law ought to keep up with social changes, much like the landmark 2015 "same-sex" marriage ruling in in Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S.Ct. 2584 (2015) and prior ground-breaking...

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