Now that the Democrat-led U.S. House has passed The Equality Act, all eyes are on the U.S. Senate to stop the controversial bill that promises to toss aside biblical-based objections, upend women’s-only sports, and alter the historic Civil Rights Act.
The media-savvy Democratic Party is famous for whipping up support with emotional appeals, and Inez Stepman of the Independent Women’s Voice says it appears the wrongly-named Equality Act is daring the public to speak up and fight against it.
“We need people to call their senators and make it clear,” she tells One News Now, “that you’re not fooled by the name of this act.”
The controversial legislation, a top priority for homosexual and lesbian activists, passed the House in 2019 but the Senate did not take it up, leaving the bill to die in that GOP-led chamber.
Now, two years later, the Senate is evenly divided and a Democrat sits in the Oval Office ready to sign it.
President Joe Biden has urged lawmakers to approve the measure, saying “every person should be treated with dignity and respect.”
To read news stories about the Act is to be assured equality-conscious Democrats want to make sure a homosexual man can serve on a jury and a lesbian couple can rent an apartment without discrimination.
That would mean, Democrats claims, that anyone who votes against the bill is voting in favor of discrimination.
According to Stepman, there is also the issue of the Act blowing open women’s-only sports by allowing transgender girls — biological boys — to compete against biological girls.That issue has been reported by One News Now in numerous stories but, if the Act is signed into law, then the U.S. federal government would be siding with males over females, and legislation that helped black American defeat discrimination in voting and housing would be amended to literally make it legal for biological boys to shower with biological females.
The Equality Act’s future remains up in the air in the Senate since 60 senators must vote for “cloture” for the bill to advance.
Among liberal Republicans in the Senate, Sen. Susan Collins said last month she would not co-sponsor The Equality Act after “certain provisions” were not made despite promises to do so. She was co-sponsor of a previous bill.
Collins made her comments to The Washington Blade, a pro-LGBT newspaper, which reported the Maine lawmaker stated her longtime support for LGBT rights but said in a statement she was promised changes that didn’t happen. Her vote on the bill is unknown but the Blade story hinted it is in doubt.
Equality Act rips RFRA apart
In addition to tossing aside biology and locker room privacy, there is also the issue of religious freedom and, in particular, the Free Exercise clause getting tossed aside. That is because The Equality Act would gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a pro-First Amendment bill signed into law by then-president Bill Clinton in 1993.
Whereas RFRA recognized the legal standing of religious rights in a U.S. courtroom, The Equality Act would flip those rights upside down and recognize the discrimination claims of a homosexual, lesbian, and transgender plaintiff, and that would mean a pastor, priest, school coach, and business owner who was protected by RFRA would be required to defend their conduct in a court of law.
That eye-opening flip-flip is getting little attention in the media, such as this NBC News op-ed that claims religious people “reject the edicts to discriminate”, or this USA Today story that mentions religious objections near the end of the story only in the context that open-minded Republicans are dealing with their supporters’ religious objections.
Neither story mentions the Religious Freedom Restoration Act even once.
RFRA was introduced in the U.S. Senate by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and in the U.S. House by then-Rep. Chuck Schumer, who is now the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate. It passed with near-unanimous support in both chambers.
To understand how times have changed, compare that political history to last week when a Democrat lawmaker objected on the floor after a Republican lawmaker said The Equality Act goes against God’s teachings about human sexuality.
“Whenever a nation’s laws no longer reflect the standards of God,” Rep. Greg Steube warned his colleagues, “that nation is in rebellion against Him and will inevitably bear the consequences.”
“Mr. Streube,” countered Rep. Jerrold Nadler, “what any religious ascribes as God’s will is no concern to this Congress.”
“This is a defining moment for America,” observes Ed Vitagliano of American Family Association. “What Congressman Nadler has stated is what those of the Left believe: God’s will and God’s laws have nothing to do with our laws.”
According to Stepman, GOP senators need to hear from the public that voting against The Equality Act is not a vote for discrimination.
“Because they know that they’re going to be called a bigot, someone who is against equality and pro-discrimination,” she says, “and none of those things is true.”
Editor’s Note: The American Family Association is the parent organization of the American Family News Network, which operates OneNewsNow.com.
—-
Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.
The communist Democrats, by forcing Christian Churches to have homosexual and transgender marriages, are in effect destroying the Church, Churches will have to close their doors, which is the plan of the communists. As usual, the communist Democrats are destroying the First Amendment protections that the Churches have. Of course the gutless courts, including SCOTUS will probably do nothing, when it comes to protecting the First Amendment rights of the Churches.
NAME me one bill, the dems have ever put through, that ACTUALLY DID What it said.. Everything they’ve come up with has done the OPPOSITE..
If I were a girl competing in school sports from Elementary School through College or University and a Boy of Man showed up and said he identified as a woman and he was entering our track meet or swimming event or whatever the event was, I would refuse to compete and urge the others to do the same. Let the Tranny or whatever he identifies himself as compete by himself.
I’d even think of asking my parents to pull me OUT Of that school, and transfer me to a different one. IF possible that is.