I recently spoke outside the Supreme Court in the face of raucous protests on the day of oral arguments in a case involving transgender individuals and alleged sex discrimination, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Speeches had resumed outside the court after a bomb scare had prompted police to clear the area.

Members of the LGBT community relentlessly hassled and harried speakers on our side of the argument by launching wailing sirens, shouting with bullhorns in the faces of speakers and chanting mantras like “homophobe” while we spoke (a special irony given that our speakers included a lesbian and a former transgender man). I imagine their side had some reasonable arguments to make, but I could hear none over the sirens, bullhorn and chanting.

My remarks follow:

In a recent national poll of faith-based health professionals, virtually all of them declared, “I care for all patients in need, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identification, or family makeup, with sensitivity and compassion, even when I cannot validate their choices.”

So they treat all patients with care and compassion, but they need the freedom to recognize and rely on biology when treating their patients.

But some people think that to show compassion and respect for transgender individuals, the government has to force everyone to ignore not only the clear evidence of biology but also the clear meaning of the law.

In that same poll, 91 percent of those faith-based health professionals also said they oppose “Redefining ‘sex’ in federal discrimination laws to mean gender identity, defined as one’s internal sense of being ‘male, female, neither or a combination of male and female.'”

That’s why a few ideological members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and activist judges have rejected the plain meaning of sex discrimination that Congress, women and doctors have all understood and relied upon for decades.

In the process, these activists are threatening to undermine the very protections against sex discrimination that Congress enacted, which have transformed opportunities for women.

So this case today is as much about the law and individual freedom as it is about gender.
We will have no individual freedom in our country if the government can require you to believe whatever the government wants you to believe.

The genius of our nation’s constitutional protection of individual rights and freedom is not only that the minority is protected from the tyranny of the majority, but also that the majority is protected from the tyranny of the minority. The goal of our democratic republic is protecting the greatest freedom for each one of us, protecting us from government coercion, whether our views align with the majority or with a minority.

So let’s all work together to protect each other’s freedom to choose our beliefs, and to act in accordance with those beliefs, without government coercion.