Opinion of the Court
gregate. Rather than suggesting that the statutory language bears some other meaning, the employers and dissents merely suggest that, because few in 1964 expected today’s result, we should not dare to admit that it follows ineluctably from the statutory text. When a new application emerges that is both unexpected and important, they would seemingly have us merely point out the question, refer the subject back to Congress, and decline to enforce the plain terms of the law in the meantime.
That is exactly the sort of reasoning this Court has long rejected. Admittedly, the employers take pains to couch their argument in terms of seeking to honor the statute’s “expected applications” rather than vindicate its “legislative intent.” But the concepts are closely related. One could easily contend that legislators only intended expected applications or that a statute’s purpose is limited to achieving applications foreseen at the time of enactment. However framed, the employer’s logic impermissibly seeks to displace the plain meaning of the law in favor of something lying beyond it.
If anything, the employers’ new framing may only add new problems. The employers assert that “no one” in 1964 or for some time after would have anticipated today’s result. But is that really true? Not long after the law’s passage, gay and transgender employees began filing Title VII complaints, so at least some people foresaw this potential application. See, e.g., Smith v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 395 F. Supp. 1098, 1099 (ND Ga. 1975) (addressing claim from 1969); Holloway v. Arthur Andersen & Co., 566 F. 2d 659, 661 (CA9 1977) (addressing claim from 1974). And less than a decade after Title VII’s passage, during debates over the Equal Rights Amendment, others counseled that its language—which was strikingly similar to Title VII’s—might also protect homosexuals from discrimination. See, e.g., Note, The Legality of Homosexual Marriage, 82 Yale L. J. 573, 583–584 (1973).
