7 Reasons Why the Equality Act Is Anything But Actually Unequal, Unfair, and Unjust

Americans don’t want a nationwide bathroom requirement, health care mandate, or “preferred pronoun” law based on gender identity, but congressional Democrats seem to think it’s time to impose them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nancy Pelosi delivered Wednesday on her promise to introduce the so-called Equality Act, which would elevate sexual orientation and gender identity to protected classes in federal anti-discrimination law. Although that may sound nice in theory, in practice sexual orientation and gender identity policies at the state and local level have caused profound harms to Americans from all walks of life.How might a sexual orientation and gender identity law on the federal level, as introduced in the House and Senate, affect you and your community? Here are seven ways: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. It would penalize Americans who don’t affirm new sexual norms or gender ideology. Jack Phillips’ case went all the way to the Supreme Court after the Colorado Civil Rights Commission accused the bakery owner of discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation when the self-described cake artist declined to create a custom cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, but left the law in question, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, intact. Until last week, Phillips was in court again defending himself against the same agency under the same law. The day after the Supreme Court ruled in Phillips’ case, Autumn Scardina, a lawyer who identifies as transgender, requested that he create a “gender transition cake.” After Phillips declined, the state Civil Rights Commission found probable cause under the law that the baker had discriminated on the basis of gender identity. Thankfully, the commission last week dropped the case, and Phillips agreed to drop his own lawsuit accusing the state agency of harassing him for his Christian beliefs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phillips is just one of many Americans who have lost income because of their belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. Others cases involve florists, bakers, photographers, wedding venue owners, videographers, web designers, calligraphers, and public servants.These cases are just the beginning. The same policies used to silence disagreement over marriage can be used to silence disagreement over the biological reality of sex. 2. It would compel speech. Virginia high school teacher Peter Vlaming lost his job for something he did not say. A county school board voted unanimously to fire the veteran teacher over the objections of his students after he refused to comply with administrators’ orders to use masculine pronouns in referring to a female student who identifies as transgender.Vlaming did his best to accommodate the student without violating his religious belief that God created human beings male and female, using the student’s new name and simply refraining from using pronouns altogether. Unfortunately, the school still considered this a violation of its anti-discrimination policy.Incidents like these would increase under federal policy proposed in the Equality Act. Both federal and private employers could face costly lawsuits if they fail to implement strict preferred pronoun policies. Employees could be disciplined if they fail to comply, regardless of their scientific or moral objections. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. It could shut down charities. Foster care and adoption agencies, drug rehabilitation centers, and homeless centers already face challenges under state and local policies on sexual orientation and gender identity.In Philadelphia, just days after the city put out an urgent call for 300 additional families to foster children, the city halted child placements by Catholic Social Services because of the organization’s belief that every child deserves both a mother and a father. Although same-sex couples have the opportunity to foster children through the state or every other agency in Philadelphia, the city canceled its contract with Catholic Social Services. The agency’s approved foster homes remain available while children languish on the waiting list. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A federal sexual orientation and gender identity law would make this situation a national phenomenon, which would spell disaster for the 437,500 children in foster care nationwide.Other charities would be affected, too. In Anchorage, Alaska, a biological male born Timothy Paul Coyle goes by the name of Samantha Amanda Coyle. On two occasions, Coyle tried to gain access to the city’s Downtown Soup Kitchen Hope Center, a shelter for homeless, abused, and trafficked women. In one attempt, authorities said, Coyle was inebriated and had gotten into a fight with a staffer at another shelter, so Hope Center staff paid Coyle’s fare to the emergency room to receive medical attention. Coyle sued the center for “gender identity discrimination.” A federal sexual orientation and gender identity law could force any social service organization to open up private facilities—including single-sex bathrooms, showers, and sleeping areas—to members of the opposite sex. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. It would allow more biological males to defeat girls in sports. Two biological males who identify and compete as women easily defeated all of their female competitors in an event at the Connecticut State Track Championships. Transgender athlete Terry Miller broke the state record in the girls’100-meter dash. Andraya Yearwood, also transgender, took second place. Selina Soule, a female runner, not only lost to the biological males in the championships but also lost out on valuable opportunities to be seen by college coaches and chosen for scholarships. Soule said about the 100-meter event: “We all know the outcome of the race before it even starts; it’s demoralizing.” A federal sexual orientation and gender identity law would defeat the purpose of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which is supposed to guarantee women equal educational and athletic opportunities. Under radical gender identity policies, female athletes have sustained gruesome injuries at the hands of male competitors. In high school wrestling, female athletes have forfeited rather than compete against transgender athletes on testosterone. A federal law could set girls’ and women’s sports back permanently at every level. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. It could be used to coerce medical professionals. Under state sexual orientation and gender identity laws, individuals who identify as transgender have sued Catholic hospitals in California and New Jersey for declining to perform hysterectomies on otherwise healthy women who wanted to pursue gender transition. If these lawsuits succeed, medical professionals would be pressured to treat patients according to ideology rather than their best medical judgment.The Obama administration tried to coerce medical professionals into offering transition-affirming therapies through a regulation in the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. That move was stopped in the 11th hour by a federal judge. However, that could all be set back in motion if a national law imposes a nationwide health care mandate regarding gender identity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. It could lead to more parents losing custody of their children. The politicization of medicine according to gender ideology will create more conflicts among parents, doctors, and the government. A federal sexual orientation and gender identity law would jeopardize parental rights nationwide.In fact, the current issue of the American Journal of Bioethics includes an article arguing that the state should overrule the parents of transgender children who do not consent to give them puberty-blocking drugs. This has already happened. In Ohio, a judge removed a biological girl from her parents’ custody after they declined to help her “transition” to male with testosterone supplements. After the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s Transgender Health Clinic recommended these treatments for the girl’s gender dysphoria, the parents wanted to pursue counseling instead. Then the county’s family services agency charged the parents with abuse and neglect, and the judge terminated their custody. Similar cases are proceeding through the courts with children as young as6 years old.Meanwhile, studies show that 80 to 95 percent of children no longer experience gender dysphoria after puberty. Politicizing medicine could have serious consequences for children who are exposed to the unnecessary medical risks of drastic therapies. A federal sexual orientation and gender identity law would make these cases more common. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. It would enable sexual assault. A complaint under investigation by federal education officials alleges that a boy who identifies as “gender fluid” at Oakhurst Elementary School in Decatur, Georgia, sexually assaulted Pascha Thomas’ 5-year-old daughter in a girls’ restroom. The boy had access to the girls’ restroom because of Decatur City Schools’ transgender restroom policy. School authorities refused to change the policy even after Thomas reported the assault. Eventually, she decided to remove her daughter from school for the girl’s emotional well-being and physical safety. A federal sexual orientation and gender identity law would give male sexual predators who self-identify as females access to private facilities, increasing the likelihood of these tragic incidents. It could also make victims less likely to report sexual misconduct and police less likely to get involved, for fear of being accused of discrimination. The proposed Equality Act could impose a nationwide bathroom policy that would leave women and children in particular vulnerable to predators. It actually would promote inequality by elevating the ideologies of special-interest groups to the level of protected groups in civil rights law. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** The Equality Act defies the purpose of anti-discrimination laws. The original Civil Rights Act was enacted to protect African-Americans from being denied access to material goods and services.The Equality Act, by contrast, would be used as a sword to attack people and force them to adopt new ideologies about human sexuality.This extreme and dangerous legislation would create unprecedented harms to businesses, charities, medical professionals, women and children, and entire families.The writing is on the wall: The Equality Act is anything but. https://www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/7-reasons-why-the-equality-act-anything ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's How The Equality Act Threatens Your Freedom Laws must respect freedom and promote justice for all. The “Equality Act” doesn't do that, but instead threatens Americans’ fundamental liberties. Today, the “Equality Act” was introduced in Congress. With a Democrat-controlled House and Senate, the passage of this legislation is more likely than ever before. And President Joe Biden campaigned on the promise that he would sign the Act into law within his first 100 days if passed. But the “Equality Act” should be concerning to anyone who values religious freedom and true equality. It is a deliberate attempt to force people of faith—good people who serve everyone—to promote messages and celebrate events that conflict with their sincere beliefs. The “Equality Act” would also threaten the equal treatment of women and upend the bedrock understanding of male and female in our law and culture. To understand how, let’s take a more in-depth look at this legislation and its ramifications. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is the “Equality Act”? The essence of the “Equality Act” is its addition of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes to already existing federal nondiscrimination laws. This would prohibit employers, preschools, and even religious schools and organizations from making choices based on basic biology, bodily privacy, and their beliefs about the nature of marriage. It would apply to every single recipient of federal financial assistance (including every public school and almost all colleges and universities.)And though “nondiscrimination” sounds good in the abstract, that is not what this bill is truly about. The bill actually poses a devastating and unprecedented threat to free speech, religious freedom, and the progress that women have made toward true equal treatment in law and culture. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The good news is that God has equipped Alliance Defending Freedom for such a time as this. With 12 Supreme Court victories since 2011, ADF will stand up to the Biden administration, all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, to protect the First Amendment rights of Americans. How would the “Equality Act” threaten religious freedom and free speech? ADF has seen the impact that laws similar to the “Equality Act” have had across the country. And we stand ready to provide a strong defense for religious freedom and free speech. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The “Equality Act” could forbid churches and religious nonprofits from requiring their employees to live out their religious beliefs about marriage, sexual morality, and the distinction between the sexes. They could be required to open their sex-specific facilities to members of the opposite sex. ADF successfully represented one Massachusetts church after the government threatened to force it to open its women’s shelter for victims of domestic violence to males. The “Equality Act” would threaten religious foster care and adoption agencies with closure if they operate according to their deeply held belief that the best place for a child is a home with a married mother and father. In New York, for example, the state is using a sexual orientation, gender identity regulation—similar to the “Equality Act”—to shutter the adoption services of New Hope Family Services, which has been placing children in loving homes for over 50 years. ADF is representing New Hope in court. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It would threaten creative professionals and other business owners who simply want to live and work according to their beliefs. ADF successfully represented promotional printer Blaine Adamson after he respectfully declined an organization’s request to print shirts with a message promoting an LGBT pride festival because the message violated his religious beliefs. But Blaine offered to connect the organization to another printer who would create the requested shirts. Even so, the organization filed a discrimination complaint against Blaine, and a local human rights commission ordered him to undergo diversity training. The “Equality Act” would also force individuals to speak messages that violate their beliefs under the threat of punishment. ADF is representing Dr. Nicholas Meriwether, who was disciplined by Shawnee State University for declining to refer to a male student as a woman. He offered to refer to the student by first or last name only, in order to respect both the student and his own beliefs, but this did not satisfy the university, which still punished him. How would the “Equality Act” threaten women? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The “Equality Act” would force women to share private spaces with men. This is a threat to women who need critical services, such as those provided by Downtown Hope Center in Anchorage, Alaska. ADF successfully defended Downtown Hope Center after the city government tried to force the shelter to allow biological men who identify as female to sleep mere feet from women, many of whom have suffered rape, sex trafficking, and domestic violence. For these women, having a biological man in the room where they sleep or undress triggers severe anxiety and trauma—so much so that one woman said she would have to leave the shelter and sleep in the woods in the Alaskan winter, because she could not sleep in the same room as a biological male. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The “Equality Act” would also undermine the purpose of Title IX. Title IX was created to ensure equal opportunities for women in education. The “Equality Act” could destroy many of those opportunities. Among other consequences, the “Equality Act” could allow male athletes who identify as female to compete in women’s sports.ADF represents four girls in Connecticut, where a state high school athletic policy does just that. These four female athletes have already lost races, state championships, and opportunities to compete at the highest level. Our laws should recognize the biological differences between the sexes; by ignoring those differences, the “Equality Act” could make Connecticut’s disastrous policy a nationwide reality. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act: (RFRA)—doesn’t that provide some protection for these groups? If you’re not already concerned about the scope and reach of the “Equality Act,” here’s another issue. In the past, similar proposals have claimed to respect the concerns of the religious community, offering a few narrow protections for religious freedom. But the “Equality Act” offers no protections for religious freedom. In addition, the bill would forbid religious individuals and organizations even to invoke the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That would make it harder for the faithful to defend themselves against a bill designed to punish them for living out their beliefs.Does that sound like equal treatment to you?Essentially, the “Equality Act” gives people of faith an ultimatum: Change your faith-based practices or face government punishment.The Bottom LineLaws must respect freedom and promote justice for every citizen, no matter who they are. But that is not what the “Equality Act” does. Instead, it threatens Americans’ fundamental liberties. And that is something no American should stand for. https://adflegal.org/article/heres-how-equality-act-threatens-your-freedom?sourcecode=10016058_r500&gclid=CjwKCAjwrJ-hBhB7EiwAuyBVXS3R2pJwszQBUKmVitf8il4t9bAnHhym9hDW407Vmx7kanFSR-spERoCUkgQAvD_BwE&utm_source=grant&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=Blog Grounds for the Equality Act Are Simply Not There: The Equality Act (H.R. 5) would be devastating to all who cherish religious liberty and all who dissent from the latest cultural understandings on gender and human sexuality. The bill also represents a dramatic expansion of government power that cannot possibly be justified by the realities of contemporary American society. At first glance, such a characterization of the Equality Act may seem unfounded. Why should people who identify as LGBTQ not be protected from discrimination? The answer is not nearly as straightforward as it might seem. First, LGBTQ people enjoy the full protections of existing civil rights law. Second, LGBTQ people are denied goods or services today in a very narrow set of cases in which the denial is based on certain expressions and conduct rather than identity. As a result, the Equality Act would amount to government granting special privileges to certain views on sex and gender rather than affording needed protections to those who identify as sexual minorities. The bill’s reach is vast. It would amend existing federal civil rights law, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act, to forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in voting, public accommodations, education, employment, housing, and more. The precise meaning and scope of SOGI remain contested, however, in American law and culture, and what it means to discriminate on one of these bases rarely receives adequate scrutiny. Confusion and obfuscation on this front are a big part of the problem. A closer look reveals that SOGI laws, by their nature, impinge on the religious liberty of those who believe in traditional sexual morality because the associated LGBTQ identities, uniquely, encompass expressions and conduct. These identities, then, have the potential to implicate moral teachings in ways that other protected classes, such as race, ethnicity, and national origin, do not. SOGI laws, of which the Equality Act would be the preeminent expression, also communicate a pernicious message to society that the traditional sexual morality taught by Islam, Judaism, and Christianity is bigoted, and akin to racism. In sum, enforcement of SOGI laws and the cultural message they send exact tremendous harm on religious Americans and their institutions. The Equality Act would take that harm to the extreme. To reinforce the bill’s potential to be used to punish religious individuals and institutions, section 1107 prohibits the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a defense against Equality Act discrimination claims. As catastrophic as the Equality Act would be for religious freedom, the case against it does not end there. Here, I do not mean the bill’s other expected negative effects, for example, in medicine or female sports, important as they are. Rather, I mean that its fundamental policy justification is lacking. Nondiscrimination laws are powerful tools in the hands of government, and justifying their enactment should meet a high bar – the nature of the remedy should be informed by the extent of the problem. And the Equality Act, which would bring to bear the same legal mechanism as that enacted to dismantle Jim Crow segregation, is the most extraordinary of remedies. Not only is widespread, invidious discrimination based on SOGI not happening in America in 2021, but institutions across our society overwhelmingly embrace LGBTQ-affirming views. Though anti-discrimination laws are sometimes necessary, they are a major government intrusion into the private lives of citizens and institutions. They are only warranted to correct major systemic injustices like slavery, Jim Crow segregation, or enduring patterns of anti-Semitism. The experiences of LGBTQ persons in American society today simply do not justify creating protected classes for SOGI in federal civil rights law. In fact, widespread support for LGBTQ people is so prevalent that discriminatory attacks against good-faith opposition to certain understandings of SOGI have become common. Consider just one recent example: Amazon, by far the largest book-retailer in the country, recently removed the best-selling book by Ryan T. Anderson entitled, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. This is only the latest instance in which a cultural powerhouse has shown itself to be so LGBTQ-affirming that it deems dissenting voices intolerable. One might take only a cursory look across American society to see that major players in higher education, Hollywood and entertainment, news media, corporate business, collegiate and professional sports, social services, and government at all levels have proven willing, and even eager, to affirm and celebrate LGBTQ people and understandings, and to marginalize those unwilling to get on board. Grounds for the Equality Act and similar legislation are simply not there. Far from justifying the Equality Act, the conditions in American society today call for a recommitment to protecting the religious freedom of those whose views on human sexuality and gender diverge from the emerging consensus on these matters. The Equality Act should be roundly rejected. *This article was republished at RealClearReligion: “Is The Equality Act Necessary?”. https://religiousfreedominstitute.org/grounds-for-the-equality-act-are-simply-not-there/ Actually Unequal, Unfair, and Unjust The Equality Act is legislation that would massively overhaul our federal civil rights framework in order to mandate special privileges for sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), expand abortion access, and gut religious liberty—leaving many to suffer the consequences, including women, children, medical professionals, parents, teachers, students, families (including small business owners), the unborn, churches, religious organizations and schools, people of faith, and even those members of the LGBT community it claims to protect. It would create these mandates by redefining what we mean by the concept of biological sex, redefining what constitutes “discrimination on the basis of sex,” and significantly expanding the scope of various civil rights laws, while exempting itself from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, in order to impose its requirements as broadly as possible. The stated purpose of the bill is to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation. While prohibiting discrimination is a laudable goal, the real effect of this bill would not be to eradicate discrimination, but to erase freedom of thought and belief, along with the ability to hold a different opinion while remaining free from government retribution. The Equality Act would mandate government-imposed inequality and unfairness by requiring acceptance of a particular ideology about sexual ethics, while leaving no room for differing opinions and legitimate public debate. Simply put, the Equality Act mandates an anti-life, anti-family, and anti-faith agenda throughout federal law, and would be a disaster for all Americans. Read the Full Publication, https://www.frc.org/equalityact2019 The Equality Act: A dangerous law with a clever name: If you were looking for the very best way to get Americans to accept a radical piece of legislation, giving the bill a clever name would be near the top of the list. This is exactly the case with the so-called “Equality Act,” officially known as H.R. 5. Judging by its name alone, it seems like the kind of legislation that almost anyone would support. After all, what kind of person is opposed to equality? Even more, the bill is supposedly an effort to combat discrimination. And what kind of monster would think discrimination is good? But here’s the real issue: it takes more than a clever name to make a good law. And once you move past its name, the serious issues with H.R. 5 are both obvious and alarming. The Equality Act The truth is, the Equality Act is not just a bad bill; it’s a dangerous one. (See our explainer and one-pager). It does not represent a good faith effort to protect LGBT Americans from discrimination. It is, in fact, an effort to codify into law the progressive orthodoxy of the sexual revolution and to legally silence those who dissent. Support Our Work Thanks to the generosity of our cooperating churches and supporters like you, the ERLC is able to be courageous in the public square. Help us multiply our efforts by donating today. H.R. 5 would “expand the definition of ‘sex’ to include ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ (SOGI) and would revise every title of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to add these categories as new protected classes in the federal code.” Should it be enacted, it would imperil religious freedom, substantially harm women and girls, and cement a false conception of the human person into our nation’s laws and consciousness. Not to mention the fact that it would effectively destroy the clear (biologically determined) distinctions between males and females in our society and laws. And for these reasons, it is paramount that H.R. 5 is defeated. Addressing discrimination Christians should oppose discrimination and stand up for human dignity. Of all people, followers of Jesus should recognize the inherent value of every person, regardless of their age, race, ability, religion, or any other details or features that define them, including their sexual orientation and sense of gender identity. Every person is created by God and made in his image (Gen. 1:26-27). That is why every person matters. Regardless of who they are, what they believe, or what they’ve done, no one can separate themselves from the image of God. Being stamped with God’s image means that each person possesses intrinsic dignity and deserves to be treated with respect. There is no doubt that people in the LGBT community sometimes experience discrimination. But as Ryan T. Anderson points out, “Rather than finding common-sense, narrowly tailored ways to shield LGBT-identifying Americans from truly unjust discrimination, [H.R. 5] would act as a sword — to persecute those who don’t embrace newfangled gender ideologies.” Anderson is correct. If the Equality Act were merely attempting to eliminate unjust discrimination, it would likely enjoy enthusiastic and bipartisan support. But it isn’t. Instead, in the name of “antidiscrimination” H.R. 5 would see Christians and others forced to deny their sincerely held beliefs or suffer untold consequences at the hands of the state. It would see women and girls forced to share private spaces with biological males. It would see pro-life conscience protections stripped away from healthcare professionals. And it would threaten the very existence of countless faith-based charities and nonprofits. Disagreement isn’t discrimination We live in an age where disagreement on issues of sexuality is construed as violence. Christians and others who hold to traditional understandings of gender and sexuality are frequently slandered as zealots and bigots. But in most cases, such charges are baseless. H.R. 5 would punish people who, whether on the basis of the Bible or biology, hold fast to their beliefs that there are only two sexes (male and female), that gender is tied to biology, and that both of these realities are permanent and fixed. Christians should have enormous compassion for people struggling with their sexual identities and for people who believe there is some kind of misalignment between their biological sex and their internal sense of gender. But that compassion doesn’t negate our convictions about God’s intentional design for men and women. Nor does it undermine the importance of biological realities. Men and women are different. Public policy shouldn’t punish people for adhering to facts supported by science, reason, and faith. Moreover, women and girls shouldn’t be forced to share changing facilities and restrooms with biological males or to compete against them in athletic competitions. Faith-based nonprofits shouldn’t be forced to choose between maintaining their beliefs about human sexuality or ceasing operations. Healthcare professionals shouldn’t be forced to violate their consciences (and medical training) in order to remain licensed and employed. Opposing the Equality Act Legislation that would punish people for recognizing distinctions written into our DNA is not a serious way to advance equality. It is, however, a clear demonstration of the strength of the LGBT lobby. People of faith, and all Americans of goodwill, should reject H.R. 5 for exactly what it is, reckless government overreach. This bill would eradicate safeguards, destroy civil liberties, and obliterate freedom of conscience. It would also erase women and girls and supplant biological facts with subjective experiences. Supporting H.R. 5 is no way to advance equality. https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/the-equality-act-a-dangerous-law-with-a-clever-name/ Truth about the Equality Act: The bill is well-intentioned but ultimately misguided. The Equality Act discriminates against people of faith, threatens unborn life, and undermines the common good. Human dignity is central to what we believe as Catholics. Every person is made in the image of God and should be treated accordingly, with respect and compassion. That means we need to honor every person’s right to be free of unjust discrimination. The Equality Act purports to protect people experiencing same-sex attraction or gender discordance from unjust discrimination. Although this is a worthy purpose, the Equality Act does not serve it. And instead of respecting differences in beliefs about marriage and sexuality, the Equality Act discriminates against people of faith precisely because of those beliefs. In the process, the Equality Act codifies the new ideology of “gender” in federal law, dismissing sexual difference and falsely presenting “gender” as only a social construct. The Equality Act: exempts itself from the bipartisan Religious Freedom Restoration Act, in an explicit and unprecedented departure from one of America’s founding principles, thereby infringing on religious freedom and making it more difficult for individuals to live out their faith forces religiously operated spaces and establishments, such as church halls, to either host functions that violate their beliefs or close their doors to their communities requires women to compete against men and boys in sports, and to share locker rooms and shower facilities with men and boys forces faith-based charities that serve all people to violate their religious beliefs, and threatens the welfare of thousands of beneficiaries of charitable services such as shelters and foster care agencies, by forcing a multitude of them to be shut down jeopardizes existing prohibitions on the use of federal taxpayer funds for abortion, likely pressuring or even mandating the performance of abortions by health care providers in violation of their consciences, and ultimately ending more human lives hinders quality health care, by forcing health care professionals, against their best medical judgment, to support treatments and procedures associated with “gender transition.” The Catholic Church is the largest non-governmental provider of human services in the United States, helping millions of Americans in need through its parishes, schools, hospitals, shelters, legal clinics, food banks, and charities. Our core beliefs about the dignity of the human person and the wisdom of God’s design motivate both our positions on marriage, life, and sexuality, and our call to serve those most in need and the common good. By running roughshod over religious liberty, the Equality Act directly undermines the Church’s ability to fulfill that call.