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| Jacquelyn Martin/AP |
In a landmark 6-3 ruling, it prohibits discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” The ruling was written by Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s first nominee to the court. All four liberal members joined, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts. Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanuagh, and Clarence Thomas dissented.
"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," Gorsuch wrote. "Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit."
"Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”
The case was brought up by Gerald Bostock, who was fired from his county job in Georgia after he joined a gay softball team, as well as Donald Zarda, a skydiver instructor who was fired after he told a woman not to worry about being strapped because "100 percent gay."
The ruling is now federal law and provides similar protections to 21 states that already have protections in place for the rest of the LGBTQ+ community.
This article was last modified on June 15, 2020 at 6:21 PM ET