Court rules against funeral home that fired employee for being trans
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/03/07/court-rules-against-funeral-home-that-fired-employee-for-being-transgender/
Pink News/by Nick Duffy 03/07/2018
"Rost had told the court his transphobic actions were protected because he "sincerely believes that the Bible teaches that a person's sex is an immutable God-given gift", and that he would be "violating God's commands if he were to permit one of the Funeral Home's funeral directors to deny their sex while acting as a representative of the organization"."
"[However] the Funeral Home is not affiliated with a church; it does not claim to have a religious purpose in its articles of incorporation; it is open every day, including Christian holidays; and it serves clients of all faiths."
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Another bigoted hypocrite bites the dust. He claims to be concerned with violating God's commandments yet has his business open on the Sabbath. If he is so concerned then he needs to have himself executed as called for in the scriptures!
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Here's the core reasoning of the appellate court for why this trans funeral director is protected by Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. I have deleted some legal citations and quotation marks to make it more readable to non-lawyers, but I give a link to the decision itself below for nerds (like myself!) who are into this. The full decision is 49 pages long.
The case is Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc., United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, March 7, 2018.
From the decision:
"Based on Price Waterhouse, we determined that discrimination based on a failure to conform to stereotypical gender norms was no less prohibited under Title VII than discrimination based on the biological differences between men and women. And we found no reason to exclude Title VII coverage for non sex-stereotypical behavior simply because the person is a transsexual. Thus, a transgender plaintiff (born male) who suffered adverse employment consequences after he began to express a more feminine appearance and manner on a regular basis could file an employment discrimination suit under Title VII, because such discrimination would not have occurred but for the victim's sex. Title VII proscribes discrimination both against women who do not wear dresses or makeup and men who do. Under any circumstances, sex stereotyping based on a person's gender non-conforming behavior is impermissible discrimination.
"Here, Rost's decision to fire Stephens because Stephens was no longer going to represent himself as a man and wanted to dress as a woman falls squarely within the ambit of sex-based discrimination that Price Waterhouse and Smith forbid. For its part, the Funeral Home has failed to establish a non- discriminatory basis for Stephens's termination, and Rost admitted that he did not fire Stephens for any performance-related issues. We therefore agree with the district court that the Funeral Home discriminated against Stephens on the basis of her sex, in violation of Title VII."
Here's the link to the decision itself:
http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/18a0045p-06.pdf