Gorsuch on Gay/Trans Rights

Everybody was surprised when Justice Neil Gorsuch voted to extend employment protection to gay and transgender individuals under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  My first thought was, "Aw, that's really sweet!"  It was a choice that, to me, demonstrated his respect and affection for his mentor, retired Justice Anthony Kennedy.

News commentators have made much of Gorsuch's commitment to "textualism" – the idea that judges should interpret law according to its specific language rather than trying to descry the lawmakers' specific intent.  Textualists, though, are the Jesuits of jurisprudence: individuals expert in spinning eminently logical arguments in defense of foregone conclusions.  In Bostock v. Clayton County, Gorsuch demonstrated his mastery of the art.

The four decisions in support of LGBT rights written by Justice Kennedy are likely to be viewed by history as his most significant actions in his time on the Supreme Court.  While I'm certain Kennedy made no attempt to influence his former clerk's decision, I'm equally certain that preserving Kennedy's historic legacy was a powerful factor in shaping the younger man's thinking.

Yeah, that's really sweet.

The Inaugural Address

There is no doubt that Barack Obama said all the right things yesterday.  Maybe he's ready to become a real progressive in his second term.  Of course, as your mother told you, actions speak louder than words.  We'll have to wait and see.

Oddly enough, I suspect the item on his progressive agenda most likely to succeed is gay rights.  "Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall" not only was a great piece of alliterative speechifying, but a wonderful way of linking the three main branches of the equal rights movement, and raising the LGBT community to a kind of equality it has not enjoyed before.

His reference to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid without using the denigrating term "entitlements" was encouraging, but I'm waiting for him to back up from his offer to accept a chained consumer price index (discussed in an earlier post) for determining increases in Social Security payments, veteran's benefits, and such like.  His expressed determination to move forward to address global climate change by using executive orders made it sound like he might actually do something this term, albeit an article in today's Science Times suggests it might be a bit too late.

(It was nice to see Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan all riled up on TV, but I really was hoping for a chance to see Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who may be the most moronic member of the House, stick his foot in his mouth.  I'd think he might be the stupidest man in Texas, except for those people who keep reelecting him.)

Note: they sure do a lot of religious pandering at inaugurations!  I suspect we'll get our first openly gay president before we get our first openly atheist president.  Personally, I find the whole charade offensive.