What the Supreme Court Did Today

Trump on today's big Supreme Court ruling on LGBT rights: "I've read the decision, and some people were surprised, but they've ruled and we live with their decision. That's what it's all about. We live with the decision of the Supreme Court ... a very powerful decision," @Reuters

— Lawrence Hurley (@lawrencehurley) June 15, 2020

The majority opinion alone runs to 31 pages, and has no pictures, no charts, nor the name "Donald Trump" on any page.  And this is what they did today:

Ours is a society of written laws. Judges are not free to overlook plain statutory commands on the strength of nothing more than suppositions about intentions or guesswork about expectations. In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee. We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.

Which is far too much for some people, who obviously DIDN'T read the opinion.

This makes it complete. https://t.co/fx95KfGTcD

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) June 15, 2020

Oh, calm down:

Separately, the employers fear that complying with Title VII’s requirement in cases like ours may require some em- ployers to violate their religious convictions. We are also deeply concerned with preserving the promise of the free exercise of religion enshrined in our Constitution; that guarantee lies at the heart of our pluralistic society. But worries about how Title VII may intersect with religious lib- erties are nothing new; they even predate the statute’s passage. As a result of its deliberations in adopting the law, Congress included an express statutory exception for religious organizations. §2000e–1(a). This Court has also recognized that the First Amendment can bar the application of employment discrimination laws “to claims concerning the employment relationship between a religious institution and its ministers.” Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U. S. 171, 188 (2012). And Congress has gone a step further yet in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 107 Stat. 1488, codified at 42 U. S. C. §2000bb et seq. That statute prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion unless it demonstrates that doing so both furthers a compelling governmental interest and represents the least restrictive means of furthering that interest. §2000bb–1. Because RFRA operates as a kind of super statute, displacing the normal operation of other federal laws, it might supersede Title VII’s commands in appropriate cases. See §2000bb–3.

But how these doctrines protecting religious liberty interact with Title VII are questions for future cases too. Harris Funeral Homes did unsuccessfully pursue a RFRA-based defense in the proceedings below. In its certiorari petition, however, the company declined to seek review of that adverse decision, and no other religious liberty claim is now before us. So while other employers in other cases may raise free exercise arguments that merit careful consideration, none of the employers before us today represent in this Court that compliance with Title VII will infringe their own religious liberties in any way.

I left that passage unedited, even though it's basically dicta, because this is how Supreme Court decisions are written.  Non-lawyers struggle to understand this stuff (even when it's in plain language) with all those citations sprinkled in, and Trump says he read it?  And understood it?

I wish I could find the people who believe that and sell them this bridge I'm trying to unload.