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Big Business to Supreme Court: Defend LGBTQ People from Bias

Associated Press

   NEW YORK - More than 200 corporations, including many of America'
   best-known companies, are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that
   federal civil rights law bans job discrimination on the basis of sexual
   orientation and gender identity.

   The corporations outlined their stance in a legal brief released
   Tuesday by a coalition of five LGBTQ rights groups. The brief is being
   submitted to the Supreme Court this week ahead of oral arguments before
   the justices on Oct. 8 on three cases that may determine whether gays,
   lesbians and transgender people are protected from discrimination by
   existing federal civil rights laws.

   Among the 206 corporations endorsing the brief were Amazon, American
   Airlines, Bank of America, Ben & Jerry's, Coca-Cola, Domino's Pizza,
   Goldman Sachs, IBM, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Nike, Starbucks, Viacom,
   the Walt Disney Co. and Xerox. Two major league baseball teams, the San
   Francisco Giants and the Tampa Bay Rays, were among the group.

   In their brief, the companies argued that a uniform federal rule is
   needed to protect LGBTQ employees equally in all 50 states.

   "Even where companies voluntarily implement policies to prohibit sexual
   orientation or gender identity discrimination, such policies are not a
   substitute for the force of law," the brief argued. "Nor is the
   patchwork of incomplete state or local laws sufficient protection - for
   example, they cannot account for the cross-state mobility requirements
   of the modern workforce."

   Such friend-of-the-court briefs are routinely submitted by interested
   parties ahead of major Supreme Court hearings. The extent to which they
   might sway justices is difficult to assess, but in this case it's an
   effective way for the corporations to affirm support for LGBTQ
   employees.

   Federal appeals courts in Chicago and New York have ruled recently that
   gay and lesbian employees are entitled to protection from
   discrimination; the federal appeals court in Cincinnati has extended
   similar protections for transgender people.

   The question now is whether the Supreme Court will follow suit, given
   its conservative majority strengthened by President Donald Trump's
   appointments of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The three cases are
   the court's first on LGBTQ rights since the retirement last year of
   Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored landmark gay rights opinions.

   The Obama administration had supported treating LGBTQ discrimination
   claims as sex discrimination, but the Trump administration has changed
   course. The Trump Justice Department has argued that the federal Civil
   Rights Act of 1964 was not intended to provide protections to gay or
   transgender workers.

   The companies signing the brief represent more than 7 million employees
   and $5 trillion in annual revenue, according to the Human Rights
   Campaign, the largest of the LGBTQ rights groups organizing the
   initiative. Other organizers included Lambda Legal, Out Leadership, Out
   and Equal, and Freedom for All Americans.

   "At this critical moment in the fight for LGBTQ equality, these leading
   businesses are sending a clear message to the Supreme Court that LGBTQ
   people should, like their fellow Americans, continue to be protected
   from discrimination," said Jay Brown, a Human Rights Campaign vice
   president. "These employers know firsthand that protecting the LGBTQ
   community is both good for business and the right thing to do."

   In one of the cases heading to the Supreme Court, the New York-based
   2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a gay skydiving
   instructor who claimed he was fired because of his sexual orientation.
   The appeals court ruled that "sexual orientation discrimination is
   motivated, at least in part, by sex and is thus a subset of sex
   discrimination."

   The ruling was a victory for the relatives of Donald Zarda, now
   deceased, who was fired in 2010 from a skydiving job that required him
   to strap himself tightly to clients so they could jump in tandem from
   an airplane. He tried to put a woman with whom he was jumping at ease
   by explaining that he was gay. The school fired Zarda after the woman's
   boyfriend called to complain.

   A second case comes from Michigan, where a funeral home fired a
   transgender woman. The appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that the
   firing constituted sex discrimination under federal law.

   The funeral home argues that Congress was not considering transgender
   people when it included sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil
   Rights Act. The law prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of
   "race, color, religion, sex or national origin."

   The third case is from Georgia, where the federal appeals court ruled
   against a gay employee of Clayton County, in the Atlanta suburbs.
   Gerald Bostock claimed he was fired in 2013 because he is gay. The
   county argues that Bostock was let go because of the results of a
   financial audit.

   The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Bostock's claim in an
   opinion noting the court was bound by a 1979 decision that held
   "discharge for homosexuality is not prohibited by Title VII."