Equality Act could criminalize Christianity, Judaism and Islam
Outside a declaration of war, there is no act of Congress that would affect negatively more Americans than the House of Representative’s recently passed Equality Act, now slated for consideration by the U.S. Senate and then to the president for his signature. Billed to ban discrimination against “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” it, instead, enshrines it into the 1964 Civil Rights Act, potentially protecting pedophilia and pederasty under “sexual orientation.”
The 13-paged ambiguous Equality Act “would give homosexuality, transgenderism and other perversions of human sexuality and gender the same protections as race or sex in employment, housing, public accommodations and more.” It specifically prohibits religious freedom as a defense. “The legislation applies to churches, religious schools, religious hospitals, religious employers, gathering places, sports, all government entities and more.
Christian adoption agencies will be shut down, too, if they refuse to place children with homosexuals or individuals confused about whether they are men or women. That has already happened in states with similar legislation.”
It could criminalize Christianity, Judaism and Islam because their holy writings condemn as sin the behaviors of the LGBT community. Since it would be a federal law, “churches, synagogues and mosques will no longer be able to uphold marriage between men and women, or any moral standards dealing at all with sexuality. Counselors of faith will be banned from helping people with unwanted same-sex attractions or gender confusion. And Christians, Muslims and Jews will no longer be allowed to seek out counselors to help them deal with those issues.”
Indeed, under the measure, everyone will have to affirm the LGBT agenda or face persecution and destruction at the hands of the federal government. Churches will lose their tax-exempt status if they do not submit. Schools will lose their accreditation … and this is just the start” (“Equality Act would unleash federal persecution of Christians” by Alex Newman, New American, May 8, 2019).
The unchurched may say, “This is not my fight.” But it affects them too with respect to abortion, bathroom privacy and women’s sports!
“By amending the definition of ‘sex’ in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this legislation codifies a fundamental right to an abortion up until the moment of birth” — one minute short of infanticide. By effectively eliminating Hyde protections, it ensures that American taxpayers foot the bill for abortions (“Democrats’ passage of ‘Equality Act’ is the first stage in their attempts to criminalize Christianity,” by Randolph Jason, May 24, 2019).
It vastly undermines women’s privacy. “Men who claim they ‘identify’ as women will be allowed to use women’s restrooms, showers, changing areas and even bunk with women on trips, including church trips.” Any man “could simply walk into female facilities under this bill and claim to be a ‘transgender’ who identifies as female,” placing girls and women at risk. “It would even be forced on churches, domestic-abuse shelters, Christian schools and much more (Equality Act).
The Equality Act decimates high school female sports and the monumental gains in the sexual revolution of the ’70s that equalized opportunity for women’s sports. Biological men with more weight, size and strength, claiming transgender status, can compete with women.
Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) “introduced an amendment at the last minute to the Equality Act that would have preserved Title IX’s protections for female sports teams, but Democrats — the ‘party of women’ — rejected it soundly.” Women’s sports will never be the same.
Ironically, the Democratic Party, has abandoned 52% of the population (women) in favor of the “less than one half of one percent of the population claiming transgender status” (“Why do Democrats think they have the authority — and the RIGHT — to regulate gender on high school sports teams?” The National Sentinel, June 3, 2019). On bathroom privacy and sports they are not the party of women’s rights.
The real fear for critics of the bill is that it “provides the state with the power to persecute anyone who won’t celebrate any aspect of the LGBTQ agenda … it turns any recognition of the differences between the sexes or any preference for traditional sexual morality into actionable ‘hate,’ creating fertile grounds for lawsuits.”
It puts the LGBT community in direct collision with God as defined by Christianity, Judaism and Islam. These world religions recoil from the behaviors of this group. Behaviors, they believe, place them at odds with God and salvation itself. This legislation is equivalent to “pouring legal acid on a marriage-and-family-based culture.” For them, this is a war between good and evil.
Instead of equality, it gives legal power to those who are, largely, opponents of religion who will, according to Prof. Robert Gagnon of Houston Baptist University, an expert in biblical sexual morality, “codify into law that you are a bigot, the moral equivalent of a racist, tantamount to being a member of the Ku Klux Klan, who must be shut out of society and, wherever possible, harassed and persecuted for your beliefs.”
Thus, the Equality Act “is the most dangerous bill to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion that has ever been proposed on a national level” (“A misnamed legal jackhammer strikes,” by Robert Knight, Washington Times, May 19, 2019).
No wonder the vast majority of religious communities oppose it.
Ironically, the best way to have the LGBT community treated fairly is housed in religion. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Harold W. Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.