The International Implications of the Bostock Ruling

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D. | June 17, 2020

The Supreme Court’s ruling in the Bostock case will have tremendous repercussions internationally.

The ruling de facto read “sexual orientation and gender identity” into the 1964 Civil Rights Act alongside accepted categories of non-discrimination like race and sex. This is precisely what LGBT advocates have been trying to with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ non-discrimination provision.

Article 2.1 Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Rather than argue the list of categories of non-discrimination in the U.S. Civil Rights Act is open, as is the case with international human rights law,  “sexual orientation and gender identity” were read by Justice Neil Gorsuch into the meaning of the word “sex.” Gorsuch’s majority opinion validated the arguments of LGBT advocates that if someone is discriminated against on the basis of “sexual orientation and gender identity” he really isn’t being discriminated against because he is gay or trans, but because of sex. If he had been of the opposite sex, they argue, there would not have been any problem.

This is third-rate sophistry. Ryan Anderson and R.R. Reno have very helpfully explained why this is the case.

But we have seen this argument from international LGBT advocates before. The fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has given it credence means it will travel across the world and wreak havoc, just as Justice Kennedy’s jurisprudence on the mystery of life has spawned monsters across the world.

 

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