Glance at, skim, glide over, take a peek at, dip your mind’s toe into, read intently if you wish, read about, look at the head note of and so on and on of the (quite possibly) landmark SCOTUS 6-3 majority opinion in Bostock holding that the 1964 Civil Rights Act phrase “because of sex“ as an unlawful ground of workplace discrimination applies to instances of sexual orientation and gender, as decided under the aegis of textualism (wiki)—“interpretation of the law primarily based on the ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as: intention of the law when passed, legislative history, the problem it was intended to remedy, or significant questions regarding the justice or rectitude of the law”—and originalism (wiki)—”all statements in the constitution must be interpreted based on the original understanding of the authors or the people at the time it was ratified“.
Significantly the decision was written by conservative Justice Gorsuch.
Some conservative legal and non legal commentators are going nuts and some are saying this decision marks the end of the usefulness of these two doctrines if they lead to such results.
I’ve read some of Gorsuch’s opinion and none yet of the dissents. I agree with what I’ve so far read. I think the whining about the death of the usefulness of originalism and textualism is especially revealing special pleading horseshit. These doctrines were never to be mere instrumental means of getting ideologically preferred results.
One thing I take from what I understand of the opinion is better understanding the artificiality of 100% hiving off textualism from purposivism (Wiki)— “courts interpret an enactment (a statute, part of a statute, or a clause of a constitution) within the context of the law's purpose”—claimed to be opposites. Once adjudication gets to semantics seen in light of, in context of, the overall legal enactment, purpose necessarily gets implicated.
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