Burger King Pledges Donations to Pro-LGBT Human Rights Campaign

Earlier this month fast food giant Burger King announced that for every chicken sandwich it sold it would donate 42 cents to pro-LGBT organization the Human Rights Campaign, up to $250,000 total.

https://twitter.com/BurgerKing/status/1400618810571362305

The Human Rights Campaign is one of the nation’s most radically pro-LGBT organizations.

Last fall the group outlined public policies that would strip many Christian schools of their accreditation.

The Human Rights Campaign has promoted pro-abortion events in Arkansas. In 2014 the group spent more than $160,000 supporting Fayetteville’s controversial, pro-LGBT ordinance; the group also opposed religious exemptions to Fayetteville’s ordinance.

Burger King is just one of the latest companies to jump on the pro-LGBT bandwagon this year.

In the meantime, it’s probably safe to say many conservatives will go elsewhere this month for chicken sandwiches.

Photo Credit: Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Joe Biden Promises to Reinstate President Obama’s Guidance Letting Boys Use Girls’ Locker Rooms, Restrooms at School

Joe Biden plans to reinstate the Obama Administration’s 2016 guidance directing public schools to let boys who claim to be girls use girls’ shower facilities, locker rooms, and restrooms at school, according to the Associated Press.

In May of 2016 the Obama Administration’s federal Department of Education and federal Department of Justice jointly issued a set of guidelines reinterpreting federal law for schools that receive public funds — like K-12 public schools and many colleges and universities.

The guidelines indicated that to continue receiving funds these schools must let biological males who claim to be female use the girls’ restrooms, locker rooms, showers, and similar facilities at school, and vice versa.

The guidelines also addressed male and female student housing at schools.

Needless to say all of this created a lot of controversy at the time.

Arkansas’ governor and attorney general issued statements telling public schools to disregard President Obama’s guidelines, and Arkansas, along with nine other states, sued the federal government over the issue.

President Trump rescinded the Obama Administration’s 2016 guidelines after he took office the following year.

In 2017 the late Sen. Linda Collins (R — Pocahontas) filed S.B. 774, the Arkansas Physical Privacy and Safety Act, to help protect the physical privacy of people in showers, restrooms, and locker rooms on government property — such as public school campuses. Family Council supported S.B. 774, but it ultimately did not pass.

Obviously, it is very troubling to hear Joe Biden promise to reinstate President Obama’s radical pro-LGBT policies. This is an issue Family Council plans to monitor closely and continue to address in the future.

Three Problems With Yesterday’s Supreme Court Ruling

This week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal law prohibiting employment discrimination based on sex in Title VII of the federal 1964 Civil Rights Act also prohibits discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

In a nutshell, the court reached this conclusion by redefining the word “sex” to mean “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in addition to biological sex.

Many news outlets and organizations have oversimplified this ruling by claiming it simply says a person cannot be fired for being gay.

In reality, this ruling could be much bigger than that.

Below are three problems with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in this case.

#1. The Court Unilaterally Rewrote the 1964 Civil Rights Act

Title VII of the federal 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees from discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Sexual orientation and gender identity do not appear in Title VII.

In order to say that Title VII applies to sexual orientation and gender identity, the court had to redefine the word “sex” to cover sexual orientation and gender identity as well.

This is judicial activism, and it should concern everyone. The U.S. Supreme Court has no business redefining words like ‘sex’ in a federal civil rights law that is more than 50 years old. Doing so applies the law in a way that Congress never intended.

As Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his dissenting opinion, “A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall.”

If an unelected court thinks it has the power to change federal law in this way, what else might it try to do?

#2. The Ruling Calls Into Question Federal Laws Governing Girls and Boys Activities at School and Elsewhere

Yesterday’s court ruling only applies to Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act.

However, now that the court has said the word “sex” means “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in Title VII, it’s going to be hard to stop courts from saying that the same is true of every other law that contains the word “sex.”

This has the potential to affect everything from boys and girls sports at public schools to laws governing homeless shelters for men and women to housing at public colleges and universities.

During the Obama Administration, we saw what can happen when the government reinterprets the word “sex” to mean “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

Here are just a few examples of groups who could be impacted if courts continue to redefine “sex” to mean “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” because of this ruling:

  • Homeless shelters that house men and women separately
  • Charities that serve female victims of domestic violence
  • Faith-based adoption agencies that do not place children with same-sex couples or transgender individuals
  • School athletic programs that separate boys’ sports from girls’ sports
  • Photographers, florists, caterers, and others who decline to participate in same-sex ceremonies

#3. The Ruling Threatens to Undermine Religious Freedom

While the Supreme Court’s decision did acknowledge that federal law offers broad protections for religious liberty, the ruling threatens to undermine religious freedom at the state and federal levels.

If courts continue to redefine “sex” to mean “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in every law, it could affect hiring policies at churches. It could affect the ability of private schools to set standards and articles of faith for their students.

In other words, it could make it hard for faith-based organizations to require members to share and abide by their faith.

Future rulings like this one also could hurt bakers, florists, photographers, wedding venue owners, and anyone else who has a religious objection to same-sex marriage.

Conclusion

While yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling dealt specifically with the definition of “sex” in Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act, these court decisions don’t happen in a vacuum.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to redefine marriage in 2015 paved the way for yesterday’s decision to redefine “sex” in Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act.

Yesterday’s decision could pave the way for courts to similarly rewrite other federal laws.

And those rulings have the potential to affect millions of Americans in countless ways.