Why the Supreme Court Ruling That Employers Can’t Fire People for Being LGBT Is a Welcome Surprise

Under Donald Trump, the federal government has steadily worked to undermine all kinds of legal protections for LGBT people. Most recently, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it was reversing Obama-era heath care protections, claiming that refusing service to gay and transgender people no longer counted as sex discrimination.

Now, news out of the Supreme Court on Monday is likely to cause a series of headaches for the Trump administration. In a shocking 6-3 decision, the justices ruled that under Title VII—part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that, among other things, protects against sex-based job discrimination—it’s unconstitutional to fire someone based on their sexuality or gender identity. The ruling focuses on three cases, in which two gay men and one transgender woman were fired because of their identity.

As Pete Williams of NBC put it: "As of just a few minutes ago, it was possible to get married on Sunday and legally fired fired [sic] on Monday, but no more."

Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed by Trump to replace Antonin Scalia, wrote for the majority, "An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids." It seems to have rankled and surprised conservative activists that Gorsuch, who occupies a seat stolen from Obama nominee Merrick Garland, sided with the court’s liberals—Carrie Severino of the right-wing Judicial Crisis Network wrote, "Justice Scalia would be disappointed that his successor has bungled textualism so badly today, for the sake of appealing to college campuses and editorial boards. This was not judging, this was legislating—a brute force attack on our constitutional system."

The decision was unexpected for many reasons. As the court has tilted harder and harder to the right, it’s taken harsher and more punitive stances against workers’ rights in general, and the conservative justices have a mixed record, at best, on LGBT rights as well. This was also the first time the court weighed in on gay rights since the retirement of Anthony Kennedy, a frequent swing vote on the court who wrote the majority decision that found same-sex marriage constitutional.

Unsurprisingly, justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas disagreed that LGBT people are protected under the law, with Kavanaugh writing the dissent.

Activists and civil rights lawyers alike were stunned by the decision, with many expressing their shock on social media. Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union, who helped argue the case, reacted in real time on Twitter, going from "Did we win????" to "WE FUCKING WON!?" to "I genuinely think this is a full win. We fully won." Strangio also believes this decision lays the groundwork to reverse Health and Human Services’ recent decision to allow discrimination against LGBT people.

But the fact that there’s so much shock that the Court reached a humane decision says a lot about where its priorities are most of the time. As Joe Dunman, one of the lawyers in the marriage-equality case, wrote, "Very excited for the SCOTUS ruling on Title VII but how surprised everyone is that the court reached the obvious conclusion really says something."

Originally Appeared on GQ