Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize an enormous step forward for our country, which happened earlier this week, on Monday. Once again, on a morning during Pride Month, our Nation came closer to realizing the promise of equality for lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender, and the queer community.

The Supreme Court has made it clear that workplace discrimination against LGBTQ people is wrong, and our Nation's civil rights laws prohibit it. While this is a joyous day and a joyous week, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the untold number who have suffered in this country for years without recourse. I want to recognize those brave LGBTQ people who received pink slips, were passed over for promotions, suffered harassment and bullying in break rooms, or never got that initial interview--all simply because of who they are or whom they loved.

I particularly want to thank the plaintiffs who brought these cases: Gerald Bostock, Aimee Stephens, and Donald Zarda, as well as the families and friends and lawyers who supported them. Sadly, Aimee and Donald did not live to see this transformative moment for our country and our community, but we will remember them and honor the efforts that they and so many others have made to get us here. We will commit ourselves to continuing to push forward for full equality for them.

On Monday, the Supreme Court affirmed what many Federal courts, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and so many of us have recognized for years--that title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is properly understood to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

As Justice Gorsuch wrote for the majority:

Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions that 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.

This decision is far from radical, but it is transformative. It means that at long last in every corner of this Nation, in big cities and small towns, LGBTQ people are waking up in a fairer country. They now know that they have recourse if an employer discriminates against them simply because of who they are or whom they love. Employers know unambiguously that they have an obligation in every State to judge all of their employees on merit, not sexual orientation or gender identity.

While we have taken another big step forward--and it is a big step-- in the march toward full equality for LGBTQ Americans, we are not there yet. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people face discrimination in many more aspects of their lives than the workplace. Our country needs to send the message that treating people unfairly because of their sexual orientation or gender identity is wrong and that it will not be tolerated, period, whether that is while buying a house, going out to dinner, shopping in a store, serving on a jury, or seeking help from a government program.

While the Court told us on Monday that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is necessarily sex discrimination, those cases were about employment. While I would expect that any administration would now take a long, hard look at its wrong-headed efforts--based on the legal arguments that the Supreme Court has just rejected--to write LGBTQ people out of sex discrimination protections in education, healthcare, and other areas, I do not have confidence that this administration is going to do so.

There are areas of Federal civil rights law, such as those governing public accommodations and Federal financial assistance, which don't even yet prohibit discrimination based on sex. That is why the Senate must take up and pass the Equality Act. Senators Merkley, Collins, Booker, and I introduced this bipartisan measure to ensure that LGBTQ people have the same nondiscrimination protections as other Americans by adding sexual orientation and gender identity alongside all protected characteristics, such as race and religion, to existing Federal laws. It would ban discrimination in a host of areas, including housing, public accommodations, jury service, access to credit and Federal funding, as well as employment.

The bill would also strengthen our civil rights laws by adding protections against sex discrimination to the Federal laws where they have not been included previously, including those addressing public accommodations and Federal funding.

More than a year ago, a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives passed the Equality Act. Unfortunately, like so many other pieces of legislation that would improve the lives of the American people, it has been ignored by the Senate majority leader and placed in his legislative graveyard.

The Equality Act cannot be ignored any longer by the Senate, and LGBTQ people should not have to wait any longer to enjoy the full protections of our Nation's civil rights laws.

I urge the Senate to build on the Supreme Court's decision and act today to bring our Nation closer to the promise of equality by passing the Equality Act.

Finally, I want to close by acknowledging the extraordinary moment in which our Nation finds itself today. Thousands upon thousands are demanding the country confront racial injustices and systemic racism. They rightfully call for change, and they righteously call for change, and it is my hope that Congress will take an important step in righting some of those wrongs by passing the Justice in Policing Act of 2020 without delay.

We must do so much more, and today I am keenly aware of the Black and Brown LGBTQ people who experience discrimination and injustice in this country--not just because of sexual orientation or gender identity but also because of race or ethnicity.

As we approach another anniversary of the Stonewall riots that sparked the modern LGBTQ movement for equality, I am also mindful of the leadership of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, transgender women of color, in that historic moment. I hope the brave, courageous legacy of these leaders and the urgent needs of Black and Brown LGBTQ people would inspire us to take another step to strengthen the civil rights for all Americans and pass the Equality Act.

I now yield to my colleague from Michigan, Senator Stabenow.

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