Court Rules Homosexuals Are Second Class Citizens Until Congress Say's Otherwise.

An appeals court has found that workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation does not violate existing laws.

A three judge panel of the 11^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Friday ruled 2-1 that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Jameka Evans, a former security guard at Georgia Regional Hospital in Savannah, filed the lawsuit against her employer in 2015, claiming that she was targeted for harassment and effectively drummed out of her job because she's a lesbian.

According to the AP, visiting Judge Jose E. Martinez found that Title VII doesn't prohibit “discharge for homosexuality.”

In his concurring opinion, Circuit Judge William Pryor argued that it was up to Congress, not the courts, to expand the definition of a protected class to include sexual orientation. Pryor, an appointee of George W. Bush, was on President Donald Trump's list of possible Supreme Court nominees.

Circuit Judge Robin Rosenbaum, an Obama appointee, dissented, writing that the Supreme Court in 1989 found that workplace discrimination based on sex stereotyping is unlawful.

“Plain and simple, when a woman alleges, as Evans has, that she has been discriminated against because she is a lesbian, she necessarily alleges that she has been discriminated against because she failed to conform to the employer’s image of what women should be – specifically, that women should be sexually attracted to men only,” Rosenbaum wrote. “And it is utter fiction to suggest that she was not discriminated against for failing to comport with her employer’s stereotyped view of women.”

Evans is represented by Lambda Legal, which has said it will ask for the full 11-judge court to rehear the case.