If you are a member of the GLBT Community and you either chose not to vote in 2016 for whatever reason you claim was legitimate; you voted for Trump merely on his word that he was a better friend to the GLBT Community than Hillary, although not presenting any evidence to back that claim; or you were upset your candidate did not get the nomination, you are now on the cusp of a new era in GLBT history.

The history we celebrate in October, GLBT History Month, covers the people who fought for change and the moments in the past when we gained our civil rights piece-meal in spite of the words in the Declaration of Independence which claimed we were all equal and using that as the justifications to break from the Mother Country, and the Preamble of the Constitution which begins with “We the People of the United States” and includes “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.

But the possibility looms that soon we will be remembering the people and the struggle, the short time we experienced equality, and that moment it was all taken away bringing us back to the conditions we presently see as ancient history.

If Brett Kavanaugh is seated on the Supreme Court, there will be a majority of conservative, religiously based justices in the court with a history of opposition to GLBT equality.

The Supremes began their season as it always does on October 1.

It will be hearing at least three cases this session already appealed to the Supreme Court that ask whether existing federal law protects GLBT people from employment discrimination with a fourth one on the way.

The gist of these cases is whether a business person can cite their religious beliefs in order to violate state laws prohibiting discrimination against GLBT people.

While the conservative and the religious right claim that acknowledging the equal rights of GLBT people is giving them “special rights”, these same people want the right, unlike anyone else in the country, to choose which laws they are held to obey based on their choice of religious belief. While claiming that Gay people have no rights by clinging to the claim that a person’s sexual orientation is a choice, in spite of studies, they want to be able to ignore laws that the rest of us have to follow because they have chosen Jesus Christ as their lord and savior.

The Supreme Court has three GLBT-related employment cases on its docket.

The Altitude Express v. Zarda case deals with Title VII of the federal Civil Rights law that prohibits employment discrimination “because of…sex” with the religious crowd claiming “sex” does not include sexual orientation. The Second Circuit ruled that Title VII does cover discrimination because of sexual orientation, so the employer has appealed to the Supreme Court. Altitude Express, a recreational parachuting company, fired David Zarda after learning he was gay.

Harris Funeral v. EEOC also deals with Title VII’s “because …of sex” wording and claims that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) provides an exemption from Title VII if the employer claims the discrimination is based on religious beliefs. The Sixth Circuit ruled that Title VII does protect transgender employees when it comes to the religious beliefs of the employer, but Harris Funeral claims that not being able to discriminate results in their being “substantially burdened” by complying with Title VII. Aimee Stephens, a long time employee, was fired when she began transitioning. The employee first took her complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which ruled in her favor.

And just as with the previous two cases, Bostock v Clayton County asks whether Title VII can prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. A person who was a child services coordinator for 10 years in Clayton County, Georgia, was fired for alleged mismanagement after it was learned that he played in a gay softball league. The finding in a lower court ended up establishing that GLBT people in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont can seek protection under Title VII, while GLBT people in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama cannot.

At least one more Title VII sexual orientation case is pending in lower courts: In the Eighth Circuit, Lambda Legal has Horton v. Midwest Geriatric.

In other cases on other matters:

When it comes to education, a former student at the University of North Carolina claims the school may have violated Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act that prohibits discrimination based on gender. Kenda Kirby claims her former school took adverse action against her after she attended a “gay rights rally” and supported Democrat Hillary Clinton for president.
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In Aloha Bed & Breakfast v. Cervelli the question is whether or not the operator of a bed and breakfast can refuse to rent rooms to guests based on their sexual orientation. A lesbian couple sought to rent a room because they were visiting friends nearby in Oahu. When Diane Cervelli called to make a reservation the operator of the B&B asked whether the two women were lesbians when she mentioned her partner’s name. The reservation was denied as the owner explained, “We’re strong Christians. I’m very uncomfortable in accepting the reservation from you.”  State courts found the operator violated the state law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations, but the B&B claimed that, because it operates out of the owner’s personal residence, the public accommodations law does not apply and the non-discrimination law violated the owner’s right to free exercise of religion. However, that court ruled that if the B&B is open to the public, it must abide by the state law governing public accommodations.

In Washington State, Oregon, and Colorado there are cases dealing with bakeries refusing to sell a cake to a person because of the person’s sexual orientation or gender identity getting closer to a Supreme Court hearing.

The Masterpiece Cake Shop won a temporary reprieve from the Supreme Court based on a procedural violation by the state’s human rights commission in which it was decided it had demonstrated hostility toward the claim that religious beliefs were the basis of the refusal to sell a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding reception, but not on the issue of discrimination itself when the baker had refused to make a cake with a message that he thought implied his support of same-sex marriage.

But in a second case, the same baker refused to sell a cake celebrating a birthday and the anniversary of the customer’s coming out as transgender even though that cake was not going to have any message on it but was merely a pink cake with blue frosting. In this case the Colorado Civil Rights Commission has ruled the baker to be in violation of state discrimination laws, and as to be predicted the anti-GLBT group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a federal lawsuit claiming the Commission exhibited hostility to his religious beliefs hoping to win the case for the same reason the first case was dismissed.

But the only alleged violation was the claim that having to follow state law should have been over ridden by religion.

Transgender people are the conservative and religious right’s latest target having, apparently, found that Gay people are becoming more acceptable to the greater community and are no longer scary enough to use as boogy-men.

There are three lawsuits challenging Trump’s 2017 directive against allowing transgender people to serve in the military. The ban has been blocked by three federal district courts which resulted in the Trump administration re-wording it to make it more palatable to the courts. But a ban on transgender people serving in the military, no matter how worded, is still a ban on transgender people serving in the military.

While the three cases are moving through the system that ends at the Supreme Court this session, the Trump administration made an appeal to the Supreme Court in the case of Karnowski v. Trump which was withdrawn when the Ninth Circuit granted a stay, but a challenge brought by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia resulted in the ruling that it may go forward

Stone v. Trump, which argues that the proposed ban would violate the rights to equal protection and due process for existing and prospective transgender members of the military, is a challenge to the ban brought by the ACLU in U.S. District Court for Maryland.

Getting Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court is essential to having the cases already before the Supreme Court and those on their way to it decided in favor of discrimination that would restrict the rights of GLBT citizens based on political and religious special rights.

If you have realized you were one of those people who did not use good judgment in 2016, your chance to make amends comes up in a month when you vote in the midterms.

If you are young, remember, people my age lived our youth without equal rights, spent our adult lives fighting to get them, and were rewarded with finally being able to enjoy them in our senior years. We know we can survive if our rights are taken away because we have already lived without them and won’t be around much longer to miss them. We may not like it, but we know we can survive it.

If you are young enough to have inherited the progress without having had to work for it, you have no idea what you are going to face or whether you can handle it. Both will be totally new to you.

My life is by and large behind me. Yours is yet to come. What your future will be like is up to you.

What you remember during future GLBT History Months will either be the struggles of the past and those who fought and won the battles, or how it used to be for you.