Posted on 01/11/2017 7:23:43 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Back in October I wrote about the announcement that the Supreme Court would be hearing the case of G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board. This is the long awaited “transgender bathroom law” challenge to the Obama administration’s reinterpretation of Title IX law which sought to morph the definition of “sex” to include the SJW concept of gender identity. At the time I expressed concern over both how a split court might rule on the science behind the question as well as the possibility that they would dodge the fundamental questions entirely and choose to narrowly rule on the legal mechanics.
As SCOTUSblog reported in December, the court’s schedule for this case has been pushed back a bit. They extended the deadline for the final briefs from the student’s legal team until February 23rd. This means that oral arguments should begin during either the sitting which begins on March 20 or even the following session which kicks off on April 17th. Whether or not we might have nine justices by then is still unknown.
Outside groups are submitting opinions for the court to consider already, however. There are two of them I’d like to address this morning which cover both of the concerns I expressed above. The first comes from Liberty Council, who filed an amicus brief (read the entire thing here) with the court and they’re taking the scientific approach. In their press release they lay out the case against federal policy based entirely on unsupported “science” when attempting to redefine sex in human beings. (Emphasis added)
Liberty Counsel states in the brief: “Advancements in biotechnology have demonstrated what society has intuitively understood for millennia, i.e., that human beings are conceived as either male or female and there is no scientific basis for a claim that individuals have a separate “gender identity” that can differ from their biological sex. The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights ignored this inconvenient truth when they announced that the term “sex” in Title IX now includes “gender identity” so that sex-separate private facilities must be turned into unisex social laboratories. This Court should reject the Departments’ attempt to infuse Title IX with a sociopolitical agenda wholly lacking in evidentiary foundation.”…
The Supreme Court previously blocked the decision by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that the federal law known as Title IX should be interpreted to include “gender identity” and that a girl who “identifies” as a boy can use the boy’s restroom. The federal court of appeals ruling lacks legal authority and clearly goes against the clear meaning of “sex” when that law was adopted decades ago.
The second comes from the Family Research Council (FRC) and they’re taking the more limited approach of challenging the standing of the White House to implement this sort of change without input from the legislature, as well as bringing up the states’ rights issue.
This case is more broadly about whether a local school board is free to determine that students must use the shower, locker room or bathroom of their biological sex, and whether sex can be reinterpreted to include gender identity. The Obama administration has been hinting at the revocation of federal funds if localities such as Gloucester County take this course of action. While President-elect Trump could direct that such action must cease in his administration, attempts by legal activists to shoehorn “gender identity” into definitions of “sex” will persist, and FRC and NCVC hope the Court sees the sense in ruling in a way that leaves localities free from federal government mandates on this issue.
Here are the three primary points that the FRC is driving home, specifically addressing mandates coming from the Department of Education (DOE).
(1) Education policy should be decided at the local level
(2) The DOE letter and appellate court ruling threaten the liberty of all students by invading their privacy
(3) The DOE letter makes law when that should be left to the legislature
Personally, I would find a court ruling based on the FRC analysis to be disappointing, but it would at least serve to cut off the idea of the White House being able to issue such sweeping mandates without the consent of Congress. Far better would be a bold choice for the justices to answer the question of whether or not activists can simply ignore fundamental biology and science in general and influence public policy based on such assertions.
Before closing, there’s one other subject which always generates feedback whenever we discuss this topic and I’d like to address it here. There are a small percentage of babies born every day who have aberrations in their chromosomal structure and are commonly referred to as “intersex.” This is a very real condition and obviously society has a duty to accommodate these individuals. That does not, however, mean that the vast majority of people who are born with clearly defined XX or XY chromosomal pairs can suddenly invent a reinterpretation of sex as understood in biology. There is no new third, fourth or fifth gender on the landscape because of how someone feels. This is a question of science, not social justice, and the court should demonstrate the bravery required to say as much.
They had better check the “johns” at the SCOTUS building!!!
When I was a child growing up in The South, during the Segregation Era, Most places had three restrooms and some even four, for whites and ‘coloreds’. I thought it was stupid, even as a child
I could see it was terribly expensive to build these extra facilities.
Now, it looks like history is repeating itself....................
This bathroom crap is about one thing: forcing everyone to accept the leftist dogma about “gender” being a continuum, and not binary.
One slit trench accepts all. Geeeez, one standard enclosed bathroom with a sink and mirror will meet any requirement.
Why does this have to be a BFD?
If You have a groin pistol that you were born with you're a Male.
If you were born with a pistol holster for that groin pistol, you're Female.
GOT IT!!!!
Anthony Kennedy preparing to throw the culture under the bus one more time, eh?
This shouldn’t be anywhere near SCOTUS. It is a civility, morals and common decency issue.
Children of both sexes already use the women's bathroom, now guys dressed as women do? A lot more men want to use the womens room than vice versa. We already have lines twice as long as the mens bathroom, this will only make it worse. This should be a women's issue.
“We already have lines twice as long as the mens bathroom...”
Well, that’s cuz you are all gossiping and doing your makeup in there. Just do your business and move along :)
Fewer MIRRORS!!! Women are vying for mirrors to put their make-up on while score of women struggle in line to use the toilet.
Because it’s not really about bathrooms, it’s about forcefully redefining language and your concept of gender. It’s about the left imposing its delusions on the country by force.
It’s what they’ve done by calling a baby a fetus, and redefining marriage as gay marriage, calling a man a wife, a woman husband and on and on.
It’s called a culture war, and they’re winning it, especially in the courts.
Also changing all the bathrooms to single stalls is not a trivial thing, it would cost billions.
”… to the Obama administration’s reinterpretation of Title IX law [emphasis added] ..."
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Patriots are reminded that they need to get into the following habit. Every time we hear of a federal law, Title IX in this example, we need to find if the states had expressly constitutionally granted corrupt Congress the specific power to make the law in the first place.
And given that Title IX established sex-related protections it’s easy to find that Title IX is unconstitutional, imo, for the following simple reason.
Since the only sex-related protection that the states have amended the Constitution to expressly protect deals only with voting rights, evidenced by the 19th Amendment, and politically correct transgender bathroom rights are clealy outside the scope of voting rights, Title IX is unconstitutional imo.
Unfortunately, the misguided, institutionally-indoctrinated Supreme Court has been wrongly “amending” new politically correct rights to the Constitution from the bench with a tortured interpretion of the 9th Amendment, the so-called “right” to have an abortion a good example. But such “rights” are based on stolen state powers.
After all, activist justices are ignoring that there is nothing stopping the states from amending the Constitution with new express rights at their pleasure.
Consider that the congressional record shows that John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, had clarified that when the states ratified the 14th Amendment, they obligate themselves to respect only those rights that they amend the Constitution to expressly protect.
But when the post-FDR era Court wrongy establishes new rights from the bench, it ignores the following. A previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified that interpretations of the Constitution are not to be based on interpolations.
Here are supporting excerpts from the congressional record and Supreme Court case opinion.
“Mr. Speaker, this House may safely follow the example of the makers of the Constitution and the builders of the Republic, by passing laws for enforcing all the privileges and immunities of the United States as guaranteed by the amended Constitution and expressly enumerated in the Constitution [emphasis added].” —John Bingham, Congressional Globe, House of Representatives, 42nd Congress, 1st Session. (See lower half of third column.)
“3. The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning; where the intention is clear, there is no room for construction and no excuse for interpolation or addition.” —United States v. Sprague, 1931.
Again, the states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect having an abortion as a right, or establish sex-related protections outside the scope of voting rights. So federal laws protecting such politically correct rights are unconstitutional imo, such “rights” wrongly based on stolen state powers.
Sadly, all that the G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board case is doing is giving state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices another opportunity to “amend” new, politically correct rights to the Constitution from the bench, just as they did with abortion and gay “marriage."
Nope. What you will see is every bathroom will become either a single stall unisex bathroom, or like in Europe where you have multiple stalls, but each one locks and has solid walls and a door.
I’ve been to Europe, and those stalls are claustrophobic and hot as hell in summer.....................
No guys in the ladies’ room!
“Well, that’s cuz you are all gossiping and doing your makeup in there. Just do your business and move along :)”
I know you’re joking. BUT FYI it takes A LOT of time and cleanup to handle menstruation and its byproducts. So shut up. Glad I’m too old.
Love,
Rhoda
Re: menstruation...
Just stay pregnant as God intended and you don’t have to worry much about all that either. Be fruitful and multiply!
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