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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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Anti discrimination laws are largely bullshit and unnecessary (as any society that passes and maintains an anti discrimination law is one already broadly against discrimination) so they shouldn't really exist.

But in so much as they do exist, Bostock was a logical decision that discrimination against gay or trans employees is defacto discrimination against them for their sex, under the logic that allowing X from male employees (like certain names or clothes or medical treatments or spouses) but not female employees or vice versa requires sex discrimination.

They're not good, but it's not the court's job to decide what is and isn't good. It's to decide constitutionality and interpretation.

Bostock was not logical. The question is what did the words of the civil rights law mean (not quite the same as intent). It seems obviously clear that in the 1960s the words had a specific meaning and we then used a meaning in the 2020s to read into the historic statutes a specific requirement.

Stated differently, nobody but nobody would have believed in the 60s that the law passed created Bostock. Once you accept that, you have to believe that the meaning of law can change overtime.

Bostock was not logical. The question is what did the words of the civil rights law mean (not quite the same as intent). It seems obviously clear that in the 1960s the words had a specific meaning and we then used a meaning in the 2020s to read into the historic statutes a specific requirement.

Neil Gorsuch addressed this already as a staunch textualist.

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. Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. But the limits of the drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.

Gorsuch is a remarkably consistent textualist when it comes to statutory interpretation. Maybe you disagree with textualism as a concept, but it is a coherent and understandable legal philosophy.

Congress should get rid of such anti discrimination laws, but that is not the court's job so long as they do not violate the constitution. It is to adjucate interpretation, and from a textualist standpoint I agree with Gorsuch that Title VII includes LGBT people.

any society that passes and maintains an anti discrimination law is one already broadly against discrimination

Sometimes the broader society is against discrimination, while some areas within it are less enlightened. (This was approximately the case with the origin of anti-discrimination laws.)

A 'something sort of like left-libertarianism-ist' solution might be to have anti-discrimination laws, to establish non-discrimination as the baseline standard, but allow businesses to buy exemption from such, with the price going to an organisation rendering assistance to whichever group with which the business owner does not wish to associate; in a major city with fifty bakeries, forty-nine of whom will cater anyone's wedding as long as their money's good, the fiftieth would pay a purely nominal sum to an LGBTQWERTY+-*/ advocates' firm, and be allowed to have a 'one-man-one-woman weddings only' policy; in a small town with two bakeries, both of whose owners hope to attract customers who resent that gay people are permitted to keep their blood inside their bodies, the fee would be increased until either one of them yields, or someone opens a third bakery and undercuts them.

customers who resent that gay people are permitted to keep their blood inside their bodies

What a lovely, neutral, non-inflammatory way to describe people who don't want to bake cakes for things against their conscience. Can we get non-discrimination laws that will force Jewish delis to serve bacon sandwiches too, or at least pay a fee which "would be increased until either one of them yields"? How about we make daycare centres cater to adult babies, or pay through the nose for not serving such?

One, I specified that one of them yielding is only one possible outcome; the price of an exemption would stop increasing even if all the incumbent businesses continue their discriminatory policies, if new businesses were founded to cater to the discriminated-against group and anyone who doesn't care one way or the other, and can offer lower prices by dint of not having to buy said exemptions.

Two, if you don't like the modest proposal on which I have speculated, and don't like the status quo of legally forbidding discrimination, what solution would you propose to the problem of all the businesses in an area having a policy of "We don't sell to your kind."?

If you were in charge of U. S. Federal civil-rights policy in the mid-20th century, and could get any solution you saw fit passed by the Legislative Branch, put in place by the Executive Branch, and upheld by the Judicial Branch, and were informed by whatever source you would find sufficiently convincing that, in the absence of Federal intervention, the southern states would not moderate on their own, and Black people in the southern states would continue to find very few businesses willing to sell to them, and effectively none that were either integrated or separate-but-actually-equal, thus giving rhetorical ammunition to the Communist powers, ultimately leading to the West losing the Cold War?

what solution would you propose to the problem of all the businesses in an area having a policy of "We don't sell to your kind."?

The standard answer to that seems to be "set up your own" (in the context of driving out BadThink online spaces). At the most extreme, if nobody will sell to black people or gay people or trans lawyers, then the black, gay, and trans lawyer people set up their own businesses selling to their own people.

That's the place where government can legitimately intervene: you can choose not to sell to these people, but you can't stop them or anyone else setting up shops to sell to them.

It has to be equally applied, if it's going to be applied. No more "okay we'll rule that the Christian fellowship college society has to allow atheists to run for leadership, but we're not going to compel the Afro-Latino-Hispanic engineers' club to allow white people to run for leadership, that would be absurd!" kind of interventions. If atheists can be in charge of the Bible reading classes, white guys can be in charge of the black Spanish engineers.

But nobody wants that, they want to force the holdouts to capitulate to the new régime.

Sometimes the broader society is against discrimination, while some areas within it are less enlightened. (This was approximately the case with the origin of anti-discrimination laws.)

This was actually one of the reasons why big business pushed for the anti discrimination laws. General society wasn't open to blatant discrimination anymore, but there was strong enough pockets left they feared it could create a market niche and enable smaller competition to take their more bigoted customers away. The solution then was to make sure that couldn't happen by enshrining it everywhere as illegal instead.