Obama twisted Civil Rights Act to promote gay agenda: appeals court
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh
Circuit has ruled that President Obama's redefinition of Title VII
anti-discrimination law to include homosexuals and transgender persons is not
actual or enforceable.
The court ruled that Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act does not address workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation.
Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College dealt
with an adjunct professor at the school, Kimberly Hively, who claimed that the
non-renewal of her teaching contract was because she was openly living as a
lesbian.
Hively sued ITCC, but her case was
dismissed in court because “Title VII does not apply to claims of sexual
orientation discrimination, and therefore Hively has made a claim for which
there is no legal remedy.”
Hively appealed, but again, the appellate
court ruled that Title VII does not deal with sexual orientation. The judges
expressed sympathy for gay people losing their jobs, but the court decided to
legally interpret that law as it exists and not legislate from the bench.
The ruling briefly mentioned the recent
announcement by the Obama Administration's Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, made July 15, stating that the Administration believed Title VII
did encompass sexual orientation and gender identity. But the appellate court
determined “the rulings of the EEOC are not binding.”
In its ruling, the court used
"precedent," citing two cases (Spearman v. Ford Motor Co., Hamm v.
Weyauwega Milk Prods.) that found sexual orientation is not included in Title
VII law and then reasoned that judges were "bound" by those previous
rulings.
Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for the Alliance
Defending Freedom (ADF), told LifeSiteNews that with this important ruling the
courts have finally recognized President Obama is advancing an agenda as if it
were in the law but which in fact is not. “This decision is a blow to the Obama
administration distortion of Title VII regulations to mean something other than
prohibition of discrimination based upon biological sex.”
Put in a positive light, the court said its
hands were tied because the law is the law and not what someone wants that law
to be. But the judges of the appellate court simultaneously opened the door to
amending Title VII to include homosexuals and transgenders.
The court paved the way for legal remedy by
suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court, or Congressional legislation, could fix
the problem and explicitly include homosexuality and transgenderism under
anti-discrimination law.
The court also tried to pave the way for a
loophole in Title VII law, claiming that homosexuals are included if the case
is one of "stereotyping."
The U.S. Supreme Court adopted
"stereotyping" into law in 1989 (Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins) after a
woman was denied a promotion allegedly because she acted like a man. The
Supreme Court decreed that even though her employer did not intentionally
discriminate against her, it based her lack of promotion on gender stereotypes.
The court admitted, however, that the
difference between discrimination based on sexual orientation, which is not
covered by Title VII law, and discrimination based on gender stereotypes, which
is also not mentioned in the law but the Supreme Court has determined is
covered by Title VII, is a difficult distinction to legally make. The judges
commented that courts will struggle to guess the interior motivations of the
accused.
The appellate court went further to point out
a "gap" in discrimination law, stating that although Obergefell v.
Hodges legalized same-sex marriage, employers are not forced to keep homosexual
“spouses” employed. "The cases as
they stand do … create a paradoxical legal landscape," the court said,
"in which a person can be married on Saturday, and then fired on Monday
for just that act."
The Seventh Circuit presides over Illinois,
Indiana, and Wisconsin.
