Top Court Ruling on LGBT Workers Will Reverberate in States (1)

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision giving LGBT workers federal anti-discrimination protections will ripple across those states without laws that explicitly prohibit bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

State courts aren’t bound by the high court’s ruling that interpreted Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But they’ll be persuaded by the decision and its reasoning that bias “because of sex” includes orientation or identity discrimination, especially if their state law was modeled on Title VII or includes similar language, legal observers said.

The Supreme Court’s ruling also could fuel action in Congress and spur some state ...