BUT THE NUMBER 1 THING YOU SHOULD KNOW IS THAT IT’S LANGUAGE LABELS THE BIBLE “HATE SPEECH” AND LAYS THE GROUNDWORK TO MAKE READING, OWNING OR SELLING A BIBLE A FEDERAL CRIME
If the Equality Act makes it through Congress, the Biden administration has made clear that it will be approved by the White House and become law.Wed Feb 24, 2021 – 11:39 am EST
By Raymond Wolfe
CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSMEN: Tell them to oppose the Equality Act! Click to contact your federal politicians, now.
ANALYSIS
WASHINGTON, February 24, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — With control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, Democrats are finally poised to enact their extreme anti-family and anti-life agenda into law.
This week, House Democrats are expected to approve the Equality Act, originally passed in the Democrat-controlled House two years ago, which supporters tout as the most sweeping pro-LGBT bill in American history. The Equality Act also would be a major win for abortion providers by effectively codifying Roe v. Wade, according to numerous pro-life groups.
Democrats need 60 votes to pass the legislation in the evenly-split Senate, requiring at least 10 GOP defections. Senate Democrats could, however, take the unprecedented step of lowering the 60-vote hurdle to a majority vote, as many promised to do on the 2020 campaign trail.
If the Equality Act makes it through Congress, the Biden administration has made clear that it will be approved by the White House and become law, ushering in a hard-left onslaught against religious rights in the United States.SUBSCRIBEto LifeSite’s daily headlinesSUBSCRIBEU.S. Canada World Catholic
Here are five things all Catholics and Christians should know about the drastically pro-LGBT, pro-abortion Equality Act that could become law in a matter of days.
It would force Catholic institutions to hire transgenders, female “priests” — or face sanctions
The Equality Act would mandate that “existing Federal statutes prohibiting sex discrimination in employment” cover gender identity and sexual orientation, outlawing Catholic hiring practices.
“Any church or private school which refused to hire persons who engage in sodomy and other same-sex behaviors, or who support abortion, even though it violates church teaching, will be held to be in violation of the Act,” said Robert Marshall, writing for LifeSiteNews.
“Businesses run by Christians or those who believe in Natural law, who fail the implement the LGBTQ+/abortion agenda, will be fined, just as they would be for engaging in racial discrimination,” he continued, adding that churches may lose tax-exempt status if they reject Democrats’ dictates.
“[C]hurches which ordain male-only clergy would be compelled to change their policies under the Equality Act or lose their tax-exempt status,” he said.
A 2019 letter signed by three high-ranking Catholic bishops, as well as leaders of dozens of Catholic and Christian institutions, raised similar issues, stating that the Act would “subject private employers and others to expensive lawsuits if they fail to adhere to strict preferred pronoun policies.”
“This would affect not only small, family-owned businesses but also charities and other nonprofits that are organized with a specific mission,” it continues.
The Equality Act specifically neuters religious protections provided for in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1993 and sponsored by both current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The limitations on RFRA would be the first since the pro-faith bill became law.
The Equality Act would force Christian doctors and hospitals to perform transgender mutilation surgeries, abortions
The act would redefine sex discrimination in federal civil rights law to include “pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition,” codifying and expanding abortion protections, as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ pro-life committee has noted.
“The Equality Act would amend the Civil Rights Act to forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, but it would also fulfill the abortion industry’s long-fought desire to establish abortion as ‘health care’ officially and legally,” Kenneth Craycraft of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and School of Theology recently wrote in First Things.
“It requires that access to ‘treatment’ for pregnancy must not be any different from access to any other kind of health care treatment for any other ‘physical condition.’ But this is all code language for implementation of a vigorous national policy of abortion on demand for any or no reason,” he added.
CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSMEN: Tell them to oppose the Equality Act! Click to contact your federal politicians, now.
The Equality Act also would criminalize all counselling out of step with LGBT ideology, under the guise of “non-discrimination” in health care. Studies show that reparative and conversion therapy have worked for countless ex-LGBT patients, while the vast majority of children with gender dysphoria come to accept their sex if shielded from a devastating “gender affirmation” protocol.
Like abortion, transgender surgeries and “gender transition” “therapy” nevertheless would be promoted against Christians’ conscience rights by the Equality Act’s reworking of federal health care law.
“Catholic hospitals in California and New Jersey have been sued for declining to perform hysterectomies on otherwise healthy women who want to become male. A third Catholic hospital in Washington settled out of court when the ACLU sued them for declining to perform a double mastectomy on a gender dysphoric sixteen-year-old girl,” the Heritage Foundation has said.
“These cases would multiply under the Equality Act,” Heritage continued.
The Equality Act would increase girls’ risk of sexual assault and eliminate women’s sports
“An individual shall not be denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual’s gender identity,” the Equality Act reads.
Gender-confused males’ access to female facilities runs a grave risk of sexual assault, as seen in Decatur, Georgia, when a male student assaulted a five-year-old girl thanks to “inclusive” school bathroom policies.
“Women and girls deserve access to private spaces when they visit their local gym or use the restroom while dining out, but [the Equality Act] would undermine legitimate privacy and safety concerns that women have about sharing sex-specific facilities with a biological man,” Christian leaders’ 2019 letter against the act warns.
The Equality Act also would cement gender-confused males’ dangerous, unfair inclusion on girls’ sports teams, which the nascent Biden administration already mandated last month. “Transgender” males retain a significant edge against female competitors, humiliate them with obscenely disproportionate victories, and have inflicted brutal injuries on opponents.
The Equality Act has been totally denounced by the U.S. Catholic bishops
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has repeatedly condemned the Equality Act and is currently running a Voter Voice campaign calling on all Catholics to push their representatives to reject the bill.
“The Equality Act, which is being voted on in the U.S. House of Representatives soon, in many ways does the opposite and needs to be opposed. Instead of respecting differences in beliefs about marriage and sexuality, the Equality Act would discriminate against people of faith,” a statement for the campaign reads.
In another statement on Tuesday, five chairmen of the USCCB again slammed the Equality Act, saying that it would “discriminate against people of faith” and violate “precious rights to life and conscience” with “an abortion mandate.”
The USCCB had denounced the Equality Act in a letter in 2019, citing the bill’s attempt to “impose sweeping new norms that negatively impact the unborn, health care, charitable services, schools, personal privacy, athletics, free speech, religious liberties, and parental rights.”
“The Act’s unsound definitions of ‘sex’ and ’gender identity’ would erase women’s distinct, hard-won recognition in federal laws. Its sex-based nondiscrimination terms would end women’s shelters and many single-sex schools,” the letter read.
The Equality Act nevertheless has the total support of “Catholic” Joe Biden
“The Equality Act provides long overdue federal civil rights protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity… codifying the courage and resilience of the LGBTQ+ movement into enduring law,” Joe Biden said in a statement last week.
“I urge Congress to swiftly pass this historic legislation,” he added, having promised to sign the Act during the first 100 days of his administration if elected president.
Biden has reinforced his commitment to the anti-Catholic Equality Act with his vice-presidential pick of Kamala Harris, an avowed supporter of the legislationand other extreme pro-abortion, pro-LGBT policies.
Both Harris and Xavier Becerra, the Biden nominee to run the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, are well-known for their infamous persecution of pro-life activists during their respective tenures as Attorney General of California.
Rabbis blast US ‘Equality Act’ for calling Bible ‘bigoted’, attacking religious values
“It is outrageous that Congress would declare us bigoted for simply maintaining our time-honored traditions,” said Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, chairman of the CJV Rabbinic Circle.
By World Israel News Staff
The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), an American rabbinic group, called on Wednesday for the rejection of the Equality Act as “a direct attack on Jewish religious values and practices.”
The Equality Act, H.R. 5, is slated to be voted on Thursday in the House of Representatives.
In a letter sent Friday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the CJV argued that according to the Equality Act, a person is deemed “bigoted” if he or she adheres to traditional Jewish doctrine, if not in so many words.
For example, the text refers to “the sex stereotype that marriage should only be between heterosexual couples” as a discriminatory belief. Per the letter:
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In the letter, the rabbis say:
“The Equality Act expressly declares that the Book of Genesis [see 2:24] and all of the Jewish laws pertaining to marriage as a sanctified union between man and woman (called “kiddushin” in Hebrew, from the word “kadosh,” Holy) are nothing more than engagement in discriminatory stereotypes. This is a disgraceful attack upon Jewish Biblical beliefs, rendered no more excusable by the fact that other traditional religious groups have similar tenets.”
The letter also lists other aspects of observant Jewish practices which would be grounds for a discrimination complaint under the proposed legislation, including separate seating at weddings, single-gender dancing, and even separate hours for swimming.
“A law which would require recognition of the gender a person prefers to be… would demand we cease to operate in accordance with our sincerely-held beliefs, moral values and religious education — expressly violating our religious liberty,” the rabbis said.
“It is outrageous that Congress would declare us bigoted for simply maintaining our time-honored traditions,” said Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, chairman of the CJV Rabbinic Circle.
“And it is no mere insult; the law even explicitly rejects religious freedom as a defense, meaning it provides Anti-Semites with a new way to persecute the religious Jewish community,” Gordimer said.
Indeed, the Equality Act is the first time in history that legislation would deny protections found in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.
The CJV letter concludes: “The Equality Act has the potential to bring the United States’ centuries-long history of respecting and providing robust protection for our religious beliefs and liberties to an abrupt and ignominious end.“
CJV represents over 1500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in matters of public policy.