In a historic decision, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that companies cannot discriminate against employees based on sexual orientation.
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Indiana teacher Kimberly Hively won her case arguing that her employer's decision not to hire her full time because of her sexual orientation was a violation of the historic 1965 Civil Rights Act.
"This decision is a game changer for lesbian and gay employees facing discrimination in the workplace and sends a clear message to employers: it is against the law to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation," said Greg Nevins, of the LGBT legal right group Lambda Legal, which brought the case on behalf of Hively.
Hively — who said she was denied promotion after kissing her partner in the parking lot of the Ivey Tech community college — told the Associated Press that she brought the case because it was time "to stop punishing people for being gay, being lesbian, being transgender."
This the first time a U.S. appeals court — one step below the U.S. Supreme Court — has ruled that sexual orientation is covered by Title VII of Civil Rights Act which prohibits employment discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."
"I don't see why firing a lesbian because she is in the subset of women who are lesbian should be thought any less a form of sex discrimination than firing a woman because she's a woman," wrote Judge Ronald Posner, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan.
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The ruling by the Chicago-based seventh U.S. circuit court of appeals guarantees an eventual hearing in the U.S. supreme court given that just three weeks ago a Georgia court came to the opposite conclusion.
The legal issue at the heart of the case — whether courts can or should interpret laws based on contemporary moral principles and social circumstances — highlights the politics underlying the unprecedented senate showdown over the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.
So-called "originalists" such as Gorsuch argue that judges must interpret laws narrowly based on the supposed "original intent" of those who write them.
The seventh circuit court judges disagreed, concluding that the law must be interpreted based on current circumstances to include the broadest protections possible.
"It is well-nigh certain that homosexuality, male or female, did not figure in the minds of the legislators who enacted Title VII," wrote Judge Posner.
"(The lawmakers in the 1960s) shouldn't be blamed for that failure of foresight," he wrote. "We understand the words of Title VII differently not because we're smarter than the statute's framers and ratifiers, but because we live in a different era, a different culture."