 So, I don't get to say this very often, but we actually have some surprisingly good news out of Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court has ruled that employers can no longer discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Now, with the conservative majority, with Kennedy being gone, I wasn't necessarily sure how they would hold on this particular case that we're going to talk about, but I wasn't very optimistic, to be honest. I kind of thought that they would err on the side of taking us backwards. So, this really is big news. So, for more details on this, we go to Mark Sherman of AP, who reports the Supreme Court ruled Monday that a landmark civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination in employment, a resounding victory for LGBT rights from a conservative court. The court decided by a six to three vote that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, known as Title VII, that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against LGBT workers. 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, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court. Sex plays a necessary and undistinguishable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids. Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas dissented. Quote, the court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous Alito wrote in the dissent. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of sex is different from discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity. Kavanaugh wrote in a separate dissent that the court was rewriting the law to include gender identity and sexual orientation, a job that belongs to Congress. Still, Kavanaugh said the decision represents an important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans. The outcome is expected to have a big impact for the estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers across the country because most states don't protect them from workplace discrimination. An estimated 11.3 million LGBT people live in the US according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA Law School, but Monday's decision is not likely to be the court's last word on a host of issues revolving around LGBT rights, Gorsuch noted. Lawsuits are pending over transgender athletes' participation in school sporting events, and courts also are dealing with cases about sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms, a subject that the justices seemed concerned about during arguments in October. Employers who have religious objections to employing LGBT people also might be able to raise those claims in a different case, Gorsuch said. So, you know, this is a good decision. I obviously agree with their holding, but I am surprised that it was Gorsuch who wrote the majority opinion. You know, maybe he and Roberts are just trying to ease the blow as they, you know, strip away worker rights in other areas, but I mean, look, I'll take a win where I can get this is good news. And I absolutely am cautiously optimistic because even if they made the correct decision here, even if this kind of gives us an indication as to where this conservative court will go with regard to LGBTQ rights and maybe other social issues, you know, the other cases, I still am worried that they could side with the bigots, quite frankly. You know, when it comes to religious objections to hiring LGBTQ people, where are they going to err? Which side will they be on? Now, this tells us that they might take, you know, the correct side of history, or at least maybe there's a glimmer of hope, but I just don't know. But I mean, think about this, if you think that religious organizations, if you are an employer and you don't want to hire people who are gay or transgender on the basis of your religious affiliation, I mean, that sets a legal precedent that allows other religious employers to discriminate on the basis of race or other things. I mean, it should be a no brainer. But with the conservative majority on this court, we do have to be very cautiously optimistic. Having said that Trump, after just attempting to gut LGBTQ rights when it comes to health care, was asked to respond and he straddled that fence hard when he was talking about this decision. Go ahead, please. Did you react to the Supreme Court decisions earlier today about LGBT discrimination saying that is protected and under the Civil Rights Act? No, they've ruled. I've read the decision and some people were surprised, but they've ruled and we live with their decision. That's what it's all about. We live with the decision of the Supreme Court. Very powerful. Very powerful decision, actually. But they have so ruled. They have so ruled. Very powerful stuff, Mr. President. Very powerful. Thank you so much. Very eloquent. So look, here's the thing. Donald Trump is against LGBTQ rights. He's proven that time and again throughout the course of his administration. But the thing is that since one of the justices that he appointed has ruled in favor of LGBTQ rights, he's really cautious here because he doesn't want his voters to realize that he appointed someone who's doing the opposite of what he thought he'd do. This is a bad look. It maybe shows that Trump's judgment in selecting Gorsuch was flawed. But also, he doesn't necessarily know how this is going to pull with voters because even though people are still very much homophobic, I think that these types of discriminatory practices are becoming less popular as time goes on. So this is a political move for him. Everything he says is calculated even if he doesn't want us to believe that. And with his poll numbers down because of his fumbling of COVID-19, because of the way that he's responded to protesters, I mean, he has to be careful with his words because he doesn't want to say anything that will upset even more people. Now, there were other cases that the Supreme Court ruled on and we learned about their decisions today. Another good thing that happened surprisingly is that the Supreme Court has chosen to not take up a case related to sanctuary cities. Now, Donald Trump wanted them to hear an appeal from rulings of lower courts that held that California can actually prohibit police departments from notifying ICE when undocumented immigrants are released from jails. But, you know, the Supreme Court said we're not going to hear it. So the lower court's ruling is automatically what will be the law of the land. So this is also a win in that regard. Although there aren't all wins today because there was this ruling, as Scotus blog tweeted out, Scotus reverses decision by Fourth Circuit Court upholds permit for $8 billion natural gas pipeline that will tunnel under Appalachian Trail. And as Eric Renner Brown points out, Ruth Bader Ginsburg actually ruled with the conservative majority in this 7-2 decision. So there's that. Yasqueen, anyone? No? Yeah, I didn't think so. So look, here's the thing. I'm going to take this win where we can get this win. And for those of you who are inclined to dismiss this, this really is important. I know firsthand as an LGBTQ American that this really is important, my husband at his last job could not come out and tell his pro-Trump bosses that he had a husband because they were very vocally homophobic, right? Now, in Oregon, we're protected under state law from discrimination. They can't necessarily fire you because you're gay explicitly. But, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that we don't have to worry because they can fire you for some other bogus reason. And even if the underlying reason why they're firing you is for homophobia, they can just say, well, you didn't do this job properly or whatever. So we're going to let you go. What an actuality we may know because of what they said this is due to homophobia, but you can't prove that, right? So, you know, the federal law isn't going to completely change the game. There are a lot of states that already had these types of protections for LGBTQ plus workers. But the federal law will hopefully add more weight to state laws and change culture because I think that's what's really important. I think that public opinion for gay rights, it was moved in a more positive direction once the Supreme Court ruled that marriage equality is the law of the land. I mean, they can't make laws, but they said you can't discriminate. So this is important. I hope that we are making some progress in this area. But I mean, one step forward, two steps back, right? We make some progress with regard to LGBTQ rights, but we undo something that was positive for the environment, you know, the permit for the pipeline, right? We're undergoing a nationwide uprising because we want police officers to stop murdering unarmed black Americans with impunity. So, you know, this is a constant battle. The thing about civil rights and even civil liberties is that you never just win, right? You're never victorious and then you can sit back and stop fighting. This is a constant ongoing battle. And when you make progress in some areas, you're going to lose progress, right? The Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2013 when that was a landmark achievement of the civil rights era. So you're always needing to fight. You never stop fighting regardless if it feels like you win. But with that being said, this is really good news and I don't want to detract from this good news because we need good news desperately so more than ever in 2020. So I'm going to take this victory. This is great. I didn't think I'd be saying this, but good job, Supreme Court. It feels weird saying that, honestly.