The Meaning of 'Sex'<br><i><font size="-1">LGBTQ Rights Under the Legal Microsope</i><br><i>Part Two of a Two-Part Article</font></i>

The Supreme Court's decision in this case, Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., is likely to have a significant impact on federal workplace discrimination laws, despite the fact that the case does not implicate the employment relationship, or involve employment law. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000bb–1(b), may also impact the future of LGBTQ workplace rights. If case law is still largely unsettled as to whether sexual orientation and gender identity are protected under the umbrella of “sex,” can religious freedoms be asserted as a reason to deny employment on the basis of LGBTQ status? In EEOC v. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc., No. 14-cv-13710-SFC-DRG (E.D. MI filed 08/18/16), a district court in Michigan recently relied on another, more recent Supreme Court decision, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2751, 189 L. Ed. 2d 675 (2014), to hold that an employer can terminate a transgender employee using religious freedoms as a valid legal justification. Some state legislatures are also attempting to use Hobby Lobby as a jumping-off point to enact religious freedom laws that might very well implicate the LGBTQ community in that same way. See http://bit.ly/2hlMQeG.