They thought he was their guy

Neil Gorsuch, widely considered one of the more conservative justices on the Supreme Court, stunned observers and drew enmity from right-wing commenters after he authored Monday’s landmark decision guaranteeing LGBT people protection from workplace discrimination.

Gorsuch wrote in the 6-3 decision that the prohibition against discrimination on the basis of "sex" in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act also applies to gay and transgender employees.

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“When the ex­press terms of a statute give us one answer and extratex­tual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest,” Gorsuch wrote Monday. “Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.”

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His 33-page opinion prompted swift rebukes from social conservatives who expected the Trump appointee to be a reliable ally on the high court.

“All those evangelicals who sided with Trump in 2016 to protect them from the cultural currents, just found their excuse to stay home in 2020 thank to Trump’s Supreme Court picks,” Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host and blogger, wrote on Twitter.

Carrie Severino, president of the right-wing Judicial Crisis Network, tweeted: “Justice Scalia would be disappointed that his successor has bungled textualism so badly today, for the sake of appealing to college campuses and editorial boards. This was not judging, this was legislating—a brute force attack on our constitutional system.”

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Legal experts said the textualist approach can rankle conservatives who are more concerned with policy outcomes than the consistency of judicial methods.

“Those with principled conservative approaches to law should be pleased, (but) those whose conservatism pertains principally to social policy and not law will be outraged,” said Mary Anne Case, a law professor at the University of Chicago. The latter, she said, “are merely results oriented, and will blithely abandon all their announced legal principles to achieve desired results.”

  The Hill

Which is pretty much the entire Republican party these days.

“So, despite the huge victory today for LGBTQ rights, this remains a very conservative Court and I expect that the right will be consoled by other decisions issued before the end of the term on abortion rights, DACA, and other hot button issues,” Franke said.

I won't be a bit surprised.