Supreme Court Fails to Exercise Restraint in Employment Cases, says Family Research Council

Current Events, LGBT, Transgender, ,

On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that redefines the word “sex” to include sexual-orientation and gender identity in Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. Below is a statement from our friends at Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., regarding this decision.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the federal prohibition of employment discrimination based on sex in the 1964 Civil Rights Act also prohibits discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” The court’s insistence that a Christian funeral home must retain a transgender employee threatens its freedom to operate according to its understanding of sexuality that is rooted in the facts of science and human history. The Harris Funeral Homes, a family operated business for more than a hundred years, was challenged by a male employee who said that he would no longer follow the company dress code of wearing sex-specific clothes for work. This led to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) suing the funeral home, and the case made its way to the Supreme Court.

The court consolidated the funeral home case with two other cases, Bostock v. Clayton County and Zarda v. Altitude Express, in which employers were charged with discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement:

“The core issue before the Court in this case was whether it is within the legitimate power of judges to suddenly redefine the meaning of words and rewrite a 55-year-old statute. Sadly, the Court answered in the affirmative.

“Allowing judges to rewrite the Civil Rights Act to add gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes poses a grave threat to religious liberty. We’ve already witnessed in recent years how courts have used the redefinition of words as a battering ram to crush faith-based businesses and organizations,” concluded Perkins.

Peter Sprigg, FRC’s Senior Fellow for Policy Studies, said:

“When Congress prohibited employment discrimination based on ‘sex’ in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, both their intention and the plain meaning of the word indicated that they were prohibiting discrimination against an individual because the person is biologically male or biologically female.

“We are disappointed the Supreme Court chose to radically re-write the statute by expanding its meaning to cover ‘gender identity’ and ‘sexual orientation.’ The failure of LGBT activists to achieve their goals through the democratic process is no excuse to simply bypass that process and obtain their goal by judicial fiat instead,” noted Sprigg.

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Faith-Based Adoption Agencies Continue to Stand Up for Religious Liberty

Adoption, Foster Care, , , ,

Recently Reuters published an article highlighting the legal battle over faith-based adoption agencies that decline to place children with same-sex couples.

Nationwide, we have seen efforts at the state and local levels to force Christian adoption agencies to violate their deeply-held convictions about family and child welfare.

In Michigan, for example, St. Vincent Catholic Charities and Bethany Christian Services both found themselves at odds with government policies over the placement of adoptive and foster children.

At World magazine, Jamie Dean wrote last October,

“[E]arlier this year, the Christian groups faced a government ultimatum: accept applications from same-sex couples for foster care and foster care adoption or lose the legal right to conduct foster care in Michigan. The Catholic group refused. Bethany complied. “

Since then, Dean writes, St. Vincent has challenged the government policies and won a preliminary injunction in its favor in September.

A similar case is playing out in Philadelphia, where city officials have targeted faith-based adoption and foster care agencies.

According to Reuters, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the Philadelphia case during its next term that begins in October.

And late last year the federal Department of Health and Human Services proposed a new rule that lets adoption and foster care agencies operate according to their religious beliefs.

The rule might help give faith-based adoption agencies a reprieve from being targeted for their beliefs.

We know from experience that children raised in same-sex households do not fare as well as children raised with a married mom and dad.

A 2015 study published in the British Journal of Education, Society, and Behavioral Research concluded that emotional problems were more than twice as prevalent among children with same-sex parents as opposed to children with opposite-sex parents.

Among other things, the study found children ages 4 – 17 years with same-sex parents were more likely:

  • To see a mental health professional;
  • To report higher rates of ADHD;
  • To suffer from learning disabilities;
  • To suffer from serious emotional problems.

To put it simply, there’s no substitute for having a mom and a dad.

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