Advocates Plan Civil Disobedience at Supreme Court
LGBTQ groups mobilize ahead of Title VII cases; legal groups echo calls for activism
BY MATT TRACY
Dozens of advocacy
groups, led by Housing
Works, plan to bring
civil disobedience to the
Supreme Court next month when
oral arguments are heard in a series
of pivotal cases related to sexual
orientation and gender identity
discrimination. In response, multiple
LGBTQ-based legal groups,
including those that have fi led
friend-of-the-court briefs, are encouraging
the activism.
Housing Works, which battles
the dual crises of homelessness
and HIV, announced plans on
September 18 to organize “a national
action with a civil disobedience
component” at the Supreme
Court on October 8, which is the
same day that the court will take
up three cases that could determine
whether sexual orientation
and gender identity are protected
classes under Title VII of the 1964
Civil Rights Act.
Housing Works is sponsoring
multiple buses that will transport
folks from New York City to
Washington, D.C. The New York
Transgender Advocacy Group,
VOCAL-NY, Harlem United, Gay
Men’s Health Crisis, Rise and Resist,
Black and Brown Workers
Cooperative, ACT UP Philadelphia,
Bailey House, the Center for Popular
Democracy, Queerocracy, and
Reclaim Pride Coalition are the
groups that have so far confi rmed
their participation in the effort, according
to Housing Works.
Individuals are also welcome to
join the groups and can sign up
through Housing Works’ website .
➤ FAIRNESS FOR ALL, from p.4
tions that have survived without
complaints for more than fi ve decades.
Prior to the 2015 introduction of
the Equality Act in Congress, the
community was pursuing the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act,
which barred employment discrimination
based on sexual orientation
LGBTQ advocates are planning civil disobedience at the US Supreme Court in Washington next month
when the high court hears oral arguments in cases aboput whether sexual orientation and gender
identity are covered under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The specifi c nature of the anticipated
demonstrations is not yet
clear. A Housing Works spokesperson
said details will remain under
wraps “at this time.”
“Anyone who wants to join us
and rally in support of continued
LGBTQ workplace rights may join
us, including those who don’t wish
to do civil disobedience,” a spokesperson
noted.
LGBTQ legal groups contacted
by Gay City News embraced the
advocacy effort. A spokesperson for
Lambda Legal, which has fi led two
friend-of-the-court briefs arguing
why discrimination on the basis of
gender identity and sexual orientation
is already banned under the
law, emphasized that folks must
rally behind the community as the
court hears the cases.
“We have confi dence that our position
will prevail, but win or lose,
the entire LGBTQ community will
need to remain engaged in the ongoing
and gender identity. First
introduced in Congress in 1994,
the fi nal version of that legislation
had a sweeping religious exemption
that eventually led to a number of
LGBTQ groups opposing it. Some
of those same groups supported
the Utah law, which added sexual
orientation and gender identity
to an existing state law that had
broad religious exemptions. The
FLICKR/ TED EYTAN
work of achieving full equality,”
the spokesperson said. “We are
in this for the long haul, and we
encourage everyone to bring their
energy and talent to this fi ght.”
The San Francisco-based National
Center for Lesbian Rights is
similarly pushing for vibrant advocacy.
Shannon Minter, NCLR’s legal
director, declined to comment
on Housing Works’ specifi c plans
because they have not yet been
fl eshed out publicly, but he said “it
only makes sense that we need to
use all the tools at our disposal.”
“Civil disobedience is an important
part of any democratic country
and of course has been essential
to civil rights movements in
our country in particular — and to
the specifi c history of the LGBTQ
rights movement, from the Stonewall
riots to ACT UP to protests
against the pathologizing of gay
and transgender identity,” Minter
said.
so-called Utah compromise, added
more exemptions in exchange for
legal protections in housing and
employment, both not public accommodations.
Some advocates, notably Chad
Griffi n, then the president of the
Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s
largest LGBTQ rights group,
saw Utah as a national model, but
quickly said it was unique to Utah
POLITICS
The American Civil Liberties
Union and Boston-based GLBTQ
Legal Advocates and Defenders did
not return emails seeking comment.
All three cases are appeals —
on both sides of the issue — pertaining
to whether the 1964 Civil
Rights Act’s employment nondiscrimination
protections based on
sex cover discrimination on the
basis of sexual orientation and
gender identity .
One of the cases involve an out
gay man, Gerald Lynn Bostock,
who says he was fi red by the Clayton
County Court System in Georgia,
while another case also involves
the estate of an out gay man,
Donald Zarda, who says his sexual
orientation is the reason why he
was fi red from a now-defunct skydiving
company known as Altitude
Express.
The third case features a transgender
funeral home director,
Aimee Stephens, who was fi red after
telling her boss about her plans
to transition.
The civil rights claims made by
Zarda’s estate and by Stephens
were vindicated by the New Yorkbased
Second and Cincinnatibased
Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeals,
respectively. In contrast, the
dismissal of Bostock’s claim was
upheld by the Atlanta-based 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Obama administration and
the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission majority under the
former president concluded that
the 1964 Act provided protections
to LGBTQ workers, a position that
the Trump administration has rejected.
when the provisions of the law became
more widely known and controversial
in the community.
With Fairness for All, the true
opposition could be on the right.
“We have always known that
there are some seriously infl uential
people who doubt this,” Schultz
said. “There will be more heretic
hunting when this becomes more
real.”
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