Equality Act would add protection for gender identity and sexual orientation in federal discrimination laws

Congress is taking up the cause of sexual choice once again by contemplating the recently-introduced Equality Act, a measure President Biden urged legislators to swiftly pass.

“The Equality Act provides long-overdue federal civil rights protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, locking in critical safeguards in our housing, education, public services, and lending systems — and codifying the courage and resilience of the LGBTQ+ movement into enduring law,” Biden said in a statement.

If passed into law, one of the effects would be the insertion of the parenthetical phrase “(including sexual orientation and gender identity),” after “sex” in all federal anti-discrimination laws, Disrn reported. It will become illegal to discriminate against “race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age or disability.”

Courts would be tied up for years to come determining whose rights will triumph when religion intersects with sexual orientation and gender identity. Someone will still be discriminated against, but who?

Among its many provisions, the Equality Act would eliminate protections for girls and women by giving biological males who identify as females the ability to compete in sports as well as enjoy full access to women’s restrooms, locker rooms and showers.

It would also give special preference to LGBTQ+ individuals when forming juries.

Christian businesses would be required to actively support the LGBTQ+ lifestyle even when it violates their religious beliefs.

Parents would be prevented from opposing hormone treatments and surgeries to alter a child’s biological sex, even for minor children.

Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics & Public Policy Center, said the bill was “legislative malpractice” for its ability to end historic and legal recognition of biological sex.

“The Equality Act is legislative malpractice that turns equality on its head,” he said. “It isn’t drafted as a shield to protect vulnerable minorities from unjust discrimination, but as a sword to persecute those who do not embrace new sexual and gender ideologies.”

The proposed law specifically overrules the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which means that pastors, health care professionals and counselors would be silenced for speaking in favor of traditional Christian values, such as marriage between one man and one woman, or biological gender.

“If the Equality Act passes, the federal octopus will extend its woke tentacles into almost every aspect of Americans’ lives, imposing ‘gender identity’ requirements that effectively snuff out the sex-based rights of females, endanger parental rights, and silence religious believers in the public square,” added Kate O’Beirne, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.