As acknowledged on its own website, the United States Supreme Court “functions as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution,” and its “unique position… stems, in large part, from the deep commitment of the American people to the Rule of Law and to constitutional government.” But on June 15, 2020, six of the nine Supreme Court justices betrayed the Constitution and the Rule of Law in a decision which, like Pandora’s Box, will loose upon society a train of troubles. At stake is our freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and protections for family, women, and children.
The Bostock case was brought by activists who asked the Court to read “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” into the word “sex” as it appears in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” That the term “sex” did not of course include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” has been so obvious to everyone that attempts have been made over years by activists to persuade Congress to amend the statute by adding those terms. But Congress has never been willing to do so, and the language remained as it had been originally written. No matter, said the six justices, who suddenly realized that, after all, the word “sex” in the statute does include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”
In essence, the Court rewrote the statute and thereby exceeded its constitutional authority by usurping the Congressional prerogative to legislate. In one of the most scathing dissents in recent history, Justice Samuel Alito fumed, “There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation. The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive…. A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall. The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous…. The Court attempts to pass off its decision as the inevitable product of the textualist school of statutory interpretation championed by our late colleague Justice Scalia, but no one should be fooled. The Court’s opinion is like a pirate ship. It sails under a textualist flag, but what it actually represents is a theory of statutory interpretation that Justice Scalia excoriated…. Many will applaud today’s decision because they agree on policy grounds… But the question… is not whether discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity should be outlawed. The question is whether Congress did that in 1964. It indisputably did not.” Alito’s dissent was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh filed a separate dissent.
Actually, you don’t have to be a Supreme Court justice to see the Court’s incoherence in its tiring tirade of irrelevance. But Justice Alito left no doubt: “The Court tries to cloud the issue by spending many pages discussing matters that are beside the point” and putting forth arguments that are not only “illogical” but also “arrogant” and simply “wrong…. [T]he Court asserts again and again that discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity inherently or necessarily entails discrimination because of sex…. But repetition of an assertion does not make it so, and the Court’s repeated assertion is demonstrably untrue.”
The Court’s decision was all the more shocking for having been joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, whose pretense of honoring the textualist legacy of the late Justice Antonin Scalia comes as a bitter surprise. The case “politicizes the judiciary and undermines the very thing courts exist to uphold: the Rule of Law,” writes Princeton Professor Robert P. George, and “will destroy what faith remains in the moral and intellectual integrity of our courts.” Senator Josh Hawley calls it a “turning point,” a “seismic decision” that “will have effects that range from employment law to sports to churches.” And according to Dr. Michelle Cretella, Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians, “The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against science, common sense and the bedrock of Western Civilization when it redefined ‘sex’ to include gender identity and thereby erased females from American law.”
If there was ever a time when those who believe in faith, freedom, and family need to speak up and act, it is now. As with Sir Winston Churchill, we cannot afford to give up. IOF President Brian Brown has urged, “If we are going to protect ourselves from cultural elites imposing their values on us and the country, we’re going to have to fight back stronger and harder than we ever have before… We’ve got to hammer the politicians to act, or throw them out of office if they refuse. We can’t go silently into the night and let our nation be turned into an unrecognizable country ruled by cultural incoherence, with no commitment to universal truths, no respect for the Constitution or the rule of law, and no understanding of the importance of timeless values. I am up for this fight, and I invite you to join me.”