Supreme Court to weigh in on LGBTQ rights in the workplace

Hoo boy. Today in things that could put the brakes on progress for a generation, the Trump-McConnell Supreme Court will be taking up LGBTQ rights in the workplace. 

Two cases that will be combined for argument focus on whether lesbian or gay workers can be fired because of their sexual orientation, or whether that “is a subset of sex discrimination.” The Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said yes, it is sex discrimination, while the 11th Circuit said no, setting up the issue for the Supreme Court to tackle.

The court will also be looking at a third case in which a funeral home fired an employee because she was transgender. The owner believed “both that allowing Stephens to wear women’s clothes would violate the funeral home’s dress code and that he would be ‘violating God’s commands’ by allowing Stephens to dress in women’s clothing,” Amy Howe writes that the 6th Circuit sided with the employee and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but the funeral home owner took the case to the Supreme Court.