Trump Justice Department: Corporations can fire employees based on sexual orientation
By
Eric London
28 July 2017
The Trump administration’s Department of Justice filed court papers Wednesday night arguing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect homosexual people from being fired from their private sector jobs because of their sexual orientation.
The move marks a significant attack on the rights of gays and lesbians. By allowing businesses to fire LGBT workers, the Trump administration seeks to reestablish their legal status as second-class citizens. The Department of Justice brief advances the pseudo-legal argument that anti-gay discrimination is legal as long as the corporation equally discriminates against homosexual men and women.
The Department of Justice position is a departure from the official stance of the Obama administration. While billing itself as a defender of LGBT rights, the Democratic Party’s muted response to the Justice Department move reveals the right-wing character of its pseudo-populist “Better Deal” agenda rolled out earlier this week.
The Justice Department’s unusual decision to file a “friend of the court” brief in a private discrimination lawsuit to which the government is not a party is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to whip up bigoted and homophobic elements to distract from the escalating crisis within the White House.
Trump’s maneuver takes place as the Democratic Party continues to escalate its anti-Russia campaign, the purpose of which is to force Trump to take a more aggressive position against Russia at the risk of bringing the two nuclear powers to war.
The move came the same day as Trump tweeted that he would ban transgender people from the military. Amid a climate of crisis and…