Under the guise of ‘prohibiting discrimination’, the Democrat dominated House of Representatives just passed (for the second time) the Equality Act.
The bill passed for the first time in 2019 by the Pelosi-led Congress, but had no chance of becoming law, due to the Republican Senate refusing to bring it up for a vote and President Trump’s unwillingness to sign it into law. Now, with the Democrats in control of the White House, the Senate and the House, there is nothing to stop it.
Instead of prohibiting discrimination, this bill prohibits discernment—the kind that normal people use to understand that there are only two God-created genders—male & female (Genesis 1:26—28). It seeks to erase one of the most fundamental human distinctions. And it threatens a major foundation stone that America was founded upon—religious freedom (or liberty). How, you ask?
If the “Equality Act” is passed—which President Biden has promised to push for in the first 100 days of his administration—not even churches and religious schools will be safe from the government’s reach.
The deceptively named “Equality Act” would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes to existing laws banning discrimination in places of public accommodation, employment, housing, and by recipients of federal financial assistance.
And while that may sound nice to some, the “Equality Act” actually poses devastating and unprecedented threats to religious freedom.
We’ve already seen examples of these threats where similar legislation has been passed at the state and local levels. Now, let’s take a look at what the “Equality Act” would mean for churches and religious schools.
Forcing Churches to Abandon Biblical Teaching on Human Sexuality
In Massachusetts, state officials declared that churches are subject to state public accommodation laws. That meant if churches host public activities – something as simple as a spaghetti supper – they would be forced to open women’s private changing areas and restrooms to biological men. If a church refused, it would face crippling fines and even jail time for local pastors, elders or general members.
The “Equality Act” also threatens religious colleges and universities, forbidding college students from using their federal tuition assistance at schools that “discriminate” on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. That means any Christian university that has a code of conduct prohibiting sex outside of marriage or that declines to let biological males compete on women’s sports teams could lose federal student aid.
While you might expect churches and Christian schools to be safe from such government overreach, experience tells us that this will not be the case if the “Equality Act” is made law. Does the name Jack Phillips or Elane Hugenin mean anything to you? (One is a cake maker from Colorado and the other is a wedding photographer from New Mexico.) If the Equality Act is passed into law, we will see more of these assaults against the Christian conscience. A LOT more.
Ersatz Seventh-day Adventist, Sheila Jackson Lee, votes in favor of the Equality Act
The bottom line is that our laws must respect freedom and promote justice for every citizen, no matter who they are. But that is not what the “Equality Act” does. It threatens the fundamental liberty of a Bible-believing Christian.
To quote one conservative lawmaker “It is a devastating attack on humanity.”
“While it attacks religious freedom, freedom of expression and freedom of association, all important rights recognized in the first amendment, it doesn’t stop there, it also denies the biological facts that men and women are the two genders,” Andy Biggs said Thursday. “The bill recklessly requires girl’s and women’s restrooms, lockers, gyms, or any place a female might seek privacy, to surrender that privacy to biological males. Women’s sports are already being infiltrated.”
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”Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness” (2 Peter 2:15).