Atheists Hail Court's LGBTQ Worker Ruling But Warn of Looming Religious Battle

[NeoGreen]

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/06/15/atheists-hail-courts-lgbtq-worker-ruling-but-warn-of-looming-religious-battle/

Atheists Hail Court’s LGBTQ Worker Ruling But Warn of Looming Religious Battle
By Hemant Mehta, June 15, 2020

Earlier today, the Supreme Court said in a surprising 6-3 decision that sex discrimination, as prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, applies to gay and transgender people as well. You can’t be fired solely for being LGBTQ — which happened to the Plaintiffs in the cases under review — though that won’t prevent employers from searching for loopholes. (Stay tuned for a whole bunch of “religious freedom” cases…)

Still, it was a stunning decision and a gut-punch to right-wing activists who may have assumed they had a 5-4 victory in the bag. Instead, both John Roberts (who voted against marriage equality in Obergefell) and Neil Gorsuch (whose own views on LGBTQ rights were relatively murky until he wrote this majority decision) sided with the Court’s liberals. Even Brett Kavanaugh, who dissented, noted the “important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans.”

I won’t get into further legal details right now. But a number of groups focused on atheism and church/state separation have weighed in on the matter (because LGBTQ rights are almost always fought by religious conservatives) and I wanted to share their words here. Many of them note the looming religious battle that lies in the future.

(snip)

The Freedom From Religion Foundation:
Although today’s decision is a monumental victory for LGBTQ equality, the court failed to address a critical question: Can Christian employers claim a religious right to fire LGBTQ employees? The court didn’t answer that question. This makes the fight for state/church separation all the more vital. We at the Freedom From Religion Foundation recognize the struggle is far from over to ensure that religious dogma is no longer permitted to undermine the rights to full citizenship for LGBTQ Americans or individual liberty for any American.

(snip)

I’m not the first person to say this, but we shouldn’t have to hold our breaths for each Supreme Court decision and celebrate whenever they do something like this that is both correct and obvious. If Democrats vote in overwhelming numbers this November, it’s possible to flip the Court away from the five religious conservatives (especially if and when Clarence Thomas announced his retirement) so that these victories become commonplace.