Washington • As gay and transgender Americans march inexorably toward equality, Justice Neil Gorsuch is on the horns of a dilemma: Does he jettison his judicial philosophy to slow their progress?
Gorsuch, President Trump's first appointee to the Supreme Court, literally wrote the book (published last month) on judicial "textualism," the philosophy that says judges must rule on the plain meaning of the law, not legislative intent nor desired outcomes.
So he’s in a corner now as the high court decides whether to bless employment discrimination against LGBTQ Americans. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, and if you set aside cultural views on homosexuality 55 years ago and look only at the law itself, it’s clear: Firing somebody for not following traditional sex stereotypes — say, a man who dates a man or a woman who was identified as male at birth — is discrimination on the basis of sex.