Danielle McLaughlin

This week in 1962, Pope John XXIII convened the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council, popularly known as Vatican II. More than 2000 bishops – and thousands more observers – assembled in Rome to consider the church’s response to societal, political and generational change and the upheavals caused by World War II.

After that first convening, and in decisions made in subsequent meetings over the next three years, the church made a progressive turn.

It opened its doors, literally and figuratively, to foster stronger relationships with other religions. It sought to reach more people, and bring existing congregants closer to the church, by eschewing the Latin vernacular and encouraging Mass to be given in local languages.

At the time, it was an earthquake for the cloistered institution. Imagine knowing that 57 years later, another pope would call for allowing some married men to enter the priesthood.

Pope Francis made that announcement just days ago, as the church faces challenges of a different kind in 2019.

The only part of the world where the priesthood is growing is Africa. Elsewhere, fewer and fewer young men are answering the call to the cloth.

Just how Francis’s proposal could meet the church’s existential challenge to its survival came into clear relief this week at a convening of panAmazon bishops in Rome. There, the notion that older, married men could be ordained to lead churches in remote parts of the Amazon was discussed as a means of strengthening the church and its mission in the region.

It would be a solution to a twofold problem. First, the shortage of priests in the Amazon, where the idea of celibacy makes no cultural sense because every man takes a wife. Second, the church’s ability to combat the environmental and social justice challenges that remote indigenous communities face – as Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro looks the other way, the tribes are rendered powerless as ranchers burn the Amazon to death.

Here in the US this week, the rights of another class of people who have been historically disempowered was considered by the Supreme Court. The court heard arguments on three consolidated employment discrimination lawsuits brought by two gay men and one transgender woman.

The justices will within months decide whether a landmark 1964 Civil Rights law that prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of ‘‘sex’’ also applies to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

It is still legal across half of America to fire someone because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

The three plaintiffs were all fired after outing themselves to their employers – Gerald Bostock lost his job in child welfare services in Georgia, Donald Zarda lost his job as a skydiving instructor in New York, and Aimee Stephens lost her job as a funeral director in Michigan. Zarda died in a base jumping accident in 2014, but his family have pressed on with his case.

The plaintiffs argue that being attracted to someone of the same sex, or identifying with a different sex than the sex at birth, is fundamentally about ‘‘sex’’. The gay men argue that if they had been women dating men, they would not have been fired.

Stephens, who was on the brink of suicide before coming out to her employer and asking to wear women’s clothing to work, argues that she was fired precisely because she wished to present as a different sex than her sex at birth.

The defendants argue that the law as written was designed only to protect gender discrimination, and that it is up to legislatures, not the courts, to broaden that definition.

Certainly, Congress could act to change the law to explicitly protect LGBTQ workers. However, this is highly unlikely to happen.

But it may not be necessary. The Supreme Court has already broadened the reach of the 1964 law beyond simple gender discrimination (primarily against women).

In 1986, it ruled that sexual harassment against a woman was prohibited by the statute. In 1998, it ruled that sexual harassment by a man against a man was covered by the statute. The justices wrote that even though same-sex harassment was not imagined by the legislators three decades prior, it was a ‘‘comparable evil’’ that the law prohibited.

Is LGBTQ discrimination a comparable evil? That is the essential question.

Although differing dramatically in context, two institutions this week faced the same question: how to apply laws and rules conceived decades ago to the realities of the modern world.

For the Catholic Church, taking a progressive stance on marriage may ensure that the institution itself does not fade into obscurity. And while the existence of the court is not in question, its decision will determine whether LGBTQ Americans will win the rights afforded to millions, or continue to be obscured by a law that allows them to be fired for who they are.

Danielle McLaughlin is the Sunday Star-Times’ US correspondent. She is a lawyer, author, and political and legal commentator, appearing frequently on US and New Zealand TV and radio. She is also an ambassador for #ChampionWomen, which aims to encourage respectful, diverse, and thoughtful conversations. Follow Danielle on Twitter at @MsDMcLaughlin.