Last week the House of Representatives passed the Equality Act, which would expand the 1964 Civil Rights Act to forbid discrimination not only on the basis of sex, race, and religion, but also on that of sexual orientation and “gender identity.” It now awaits approval by the Senate. But the act goes well beyond, say, forbidding a shop from firing a salesclerk because he is a homosexual. Avi Shafran argues that its broad scope, and the fact that it cuts off avenues of appeal, poses a clear threat to religious freedom:
The Equality Act . . . would override the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which gives people a way to challenge government requirements that they feel impinge on their religious rights. . . . Without the ability even to appeal for those rights, the Equality Act would put religious Americans in unconscionable positions. For instance, religious hospitals and insurers could be coerced into violating their religious convictions by being required to offer sex-change therapies and to perform sex-change operations.
Faith-based adoption agencies could be forced to abandon their religious principles and place children entrusted to them with same-sex or transsexual couples. In an insult to the religious concept of modesty, dressing room facilities and other traditionally sex-specific spaces could have to be open to any and all. Bathrooms and showers could well become places of embarrassment and fear for many.
Legislative efforts to, in effect, coerce religious Americans into betraying our sincere, time-honored convictions are the very opposite of equality under the law. And without provisions that accommodate religious belief and practice—and without providing avenues to appeal requirements that violate them—the Equality Act would aid those who seek to deny America’s religious heritage and who wish to portray religious Americans as bigots and haters. Such hostility toward religion should not be promoted, even unwittingly, by federal law.
Read more on NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/biden-democrats-congress-voting-equality-act-are-undermining-religious-rights-ncna1258787