The Supreme Court hasn't gone completely batshit

The court decided by a 6-3 vote that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 known as Title VII that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against LGBT workers.

"An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court.

  alJazeera

Why were they even debating this issue?

The outcome is expected to have a significant effect on the estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers across the country because most states do not protect them from workplace discrimination.

[...]

The Trump administration had changed course from the Obama administration, which supported LGBT workers in their discrimination claims under Title VII.

[...]

The cases were the court's first on LGBT rights since Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement and replacement by Kavanaugh. Kennedy was a voice for gay rights and the author of the landmark ruling in 2015 that made same-sex marriage legal throughout the United States. Kavanaugh is generally regarded as more conservative.

Just call a spade a spade. Kavanaugh is an uptight faux Christian.

Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas dissented.

Of course they did.

"The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of 'sex' is different from discrimination because of 'sexual orientation' or 'gender identity'," Alito wrote in a dissent that was joined by Thomas.

They will find any technicality or loophole to discriminate, won't they?

The law prohibits discrimination because of sex but has no specific protection for sexual orientation or gender identity.

I see. Apparently we're defining 'sex' narrowly as having male or female biology. And this makes me wonder...do hermaphrodites have legal protections?

In recent years, some lower courts have held that discrimination against LGBT people is a subset of sex discrimination, and thus prohibited by the federal law.

Efforts by Congress to change the law have so far failed.

Because (mostly) Republicans wanted to keep that technicality available. So now, with this ruling, will they be able to change the law, or will the people who don't want it changed say it no longer matters?

Of course, they are still controlled by "conservatives".

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a permit for a controversial $8 billion gas pipeline that would tunnel below the famed Appalachian Trail.

The 7-2 opinion handed a defeat to environmental groups who challenged the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), which would carry natural gas some 600 miles from West Virginia to North Carolina.

[...]

Two of the court’s liberals, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, dissented.

[...]

"For decades, more than 50 other pipelines have safely crossed the trail without disturbing its public use. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline will be no different," ACP spokeswoman Ann Nallo said by email, reiterating the company's plans to be in operation by 2022.

"To avoid impacts to the trail, the pipeline will be installed hundreds of feet below the surface and emerge more than a half-mile from each side of the trail. There will be no construction activity on or near the trail itself, and the public will be able to continue enjoying the trail as they always have."

The case came before the justices on appeal from a 2018 ruling by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with environmentalists.

[...]

“While today’s decision was not what we hoped for, it addresses only one of the many problems faced by the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. This is not a viable project. It is still missing many required authorizations, including the Forest Service permit at issue in today’s case, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will soon consider the mounting evidence that we never needed this pipeline to supply power,” DJ Gerken, with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which sued over the pipeline, said in a statement.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: