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The Most Dangerous Bill of Our Time: The So-Called "Equality Act"

The Most Dangerous Bill of Our Time: The So-Called "Equality Act"

By Robert Gagnon
www.virtueonline.org
March 17, 2021

The Get-the-Homophobic-and-Transphobic-Bigots "(In)Equality Act," passed in the House of Representatives essentially along party lines (with all Democratic representatives voting for it, along with eight RINOs), is the most dangerous bill to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion that has ever been proposed on a national level. It is a game changer. Given the close call in the Senate (the bill already has 46 sponsors), if a Democrat is elected President in 2020, call it game, set, and match. It means the hard-left sexual extremists win, with you and your children (and generations to come) the big losers.

It will affect every aspect of human existence from cradle to grave, from use of one's talents and skills to mandated speech, from home to public venues, from school to employment, from day care centers to hospitals and nursing homes, from all sources of entertainment to all news outlets, from religious institutions to para-church organizations and even places of worship.

No area of existence in this life will be free from the reach of its tentacles. You will be made to conform. If you resist, you will be fined, fired, and ultimately threatened with imprisonment. Under certain circumstances even your children can be taken away. It is police-state ideological enforcement of radical, biology-denying fake science. Kiss goodbye the liberties you hold so dear and for which countless fought and died. That's how important defeating this bill is.

The key point to recognize about the bill is that it will codify into law that you are a bigot, the moral equivalent of a racist, tantamount to being a member of the Ku Klux Klan, who must be shut out of society and, wherever possible, harassed and persecuted for your beliefs. Everything else is commentary.

Here are just some examples of the draconian outcomes that would result if the (In)Equality Act becomes the law of the land:

I. The bill explicitly prohibits use of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 as "basis for challenging the application or enforcement" of this Equality Act.You will have no religious liberty defense for not kowtowing to the "LGBTQ" idol at school, at work, or in any other "public accommodation."

According to the official summary of the bill, "this bill prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system." It basically adds "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

It also "expands the definition of public accommodations to include places or establishments that provide (1) exhibitions, recreation, exercise, amusement, gatherings, or displays; (2) goods, services, or programs; and (3) transportation services." Establishments that provide a good, service, or program include not only every "store," "online retailer," and "service provider," but also every "shelter," day "care center," nursing home facility, and every place that provides "health care" and "legal services."

II. By ensconcing "gender identity" and "sexual orientation" in federal law as a specially protected civil rights categories, the bill will:

A. Put men who claim a female "gender identity" (regardless of whether any "sex reassignment surgery" has been had or cross-dressing is used to signal gender shift) in every woman's "restroom, locker room, and dressing room" in the nation (that's the actual language of the bill). Also explicitly included in the bill are women's "shelters." Let's not forget too about incarcerating men in women's prisons. Since too places where "recreation" and "exercise" are included, add women's sports.

B. Lead to national mandatory indoctrination by all public schools and non-religious private schools into the whole homosexual and transgender agenda from pre-school on up. Since "education" is one of the areas impacted by the bill, it will back up every public school's use of "drag queens" in the classroom. It will result in regular mandatory assemblies and classroom instruction that rail against the "hateful and ignorant bigotry" of those who do not sing the praises of unlimited sexualities, including homosexual activity and the right to determine one's own gender (and even "sex") as being different from one's "sex assigned at birth." All teachers, regardless of conscience, will be forced to promote homosexual practice and transgender identity, finding ways to brainwash children in their respective disciplines. Parents will not be able to opt their children out of such "sex" talks; nor will there be parental notification because it is all protected under civil rights law.

The school curriculum will also explore (at least for high school students) how best to engage in anal intercourse and other activities common to male homosexual practice; and how to go about changing one's sex. Any suggestion of a sexual binary, "boys and girls," will be strictly forbidden.

No teacher or administrator will be able to stop a boy from entering the girl's bathroom. Nor can cross-dressing on the part of students, teachers, and administrators, no matter how outrageous, be prohibited. Rather, it is to be promoted.

C. Result in national mandatory speech laws (as already in New York City, with fines up to a quarter of a million dollars for "misgendering" by every employer and employee in every business and public accommodation, including schools, health care facilities, and day care centers), requiring people against conscience and reason to use outside houses of worship false gender pronouns and gender-specific names for so-called "transgender persons."

D. Punish all persons who own a small business with massive fines and even threat of imprisonment who do not want to be forced to use their talents to promote actively and directly homosexual intercourse and transgenderism, including those who don't want to use their artistic skills to draw or design pictures, or letter cakes and T-shirts, or copy fliers celebrating these immoral manifestations. Wedding planners and photographers will be compelled to render services to "gay weddings."

E. Give the federal government the power to withhold monies from any state that does not rigorously promote the "LGBTQ" agenda and punish those who stand in the way of promoting such agendas. State and local governments currently without "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" civil rights special-protection categories will be made to have them. Moreover, "the bill allows the Department of Justice to intervene in equal protection actions in federal court on account of sexual orientation or gender identity."

F. Lead to the removal of "federal funding" (research grants, student loans, etc.) and ultimately accreditation from every religious school and college that does not promote "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" diversity. Students in such institutions enrolled in teacher certification programs will be excluded from public and private schools. Graduates from any Christian law school or psychological program will likely be denied licensure.

G. Give the state the power to remove your own children from your home and prosecute you for child abuse if you do not affirm your child's "transgender" wishes to be called by name or pronouns at odds with their sex "assigned" at birth, to have puberty blockers and "sex reassignment" surgery, to date persons of the same sex, or be involved in school-indoctrinating "LGBTQ" clubs.

H. Do what the draconian California Assembly bill 2943 would have done in that state if it had passed last year: Ban any sexual orientation change therapy, or indeed any attempt to deter people from engaging in homosexual practice or transgender change, if goods or services involve an exchange of funds.

The "Findings and Purpose" section of the bill explicitly lists among the forms of "discrimination" to be prohibited "conversion therapy," which it calls "a form of discrimination that harms LGBTQ people by undermining individuals' sense of self-worth, increasing suicide ideation and substance abuse, exacerbating family conflict, and contributing to second class status."

Since the bill applies to "any establishment that provides a good, service, or program," it arguably wouldn't be limited to just professional mental health providers but would include any Christian church or para-church organization that offered goods, services, or programs to help deter people from transgender conversion or homosexual relations (even in the absence of any claim to orientation change), if any money is charged in connection with such goods, services, or programs.

I. Force all businesses and public universities to implement "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" affirmative-action hiring programs and regular "LGBTQ" indoctrination training sessions in order to avoid being sued by the federal government for failure to uphold the civil rights of "gay" and "transgender" employees and applicants for jobs. Employees will be required to report to Human Resources any employees who are overheard speaking negatively about "gay marriage," homosexuality, or transgenderism generally or about "gay" or "transgender" employees specifically, creating a virtual police state in the workplace. Employees who post on social media their own moral or religious reservationsabout homosexual practice and transgenderism will be subject to immediate dismissal.

J. Force doctors and nurses, even at Catholic hospitals, to perform "sex reassignment surgery" even to minors and force all hospital and nursing home staff to refer to "transgender" patients by their preferred pronouns and opposite-sex name (conscience be damned). Health professionals who attempt to warn youth and adults about the damaging effects of puberty blockers, transgender surgery, and practices common to male homosexual behavior (including anal intercourse) will be fired and lose whatever license they have to practice medicine.

K. Put churches in jeopardy of losing their tax-exempt status for opposing the promotion of homosexualism and transgenderism. In addition, churches that allow their buildings to be used by non-church members will be required to make these buildings accessible for functions promoting homosexuality and transgenderism, including "gay weddings."

L. Require all charities and adoption agencies, including those of a religious nature, not to practice "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" "discrimination" in their hiring and in their distribution of services (including placing children in the homes of homosexual and transgender parents).

M. Compel law enforcement agencies, courts, and medical research studies to categorize "trans-persons" by their pretend sex. In diagnosing how diseases affect men and women, "transgender men" (i.e. women) and "transgender women" (i.e. men) will be classified by their pretend sex. Law enforcement officials in search of criminal suspects will have to identity them by their pretend sex. Judges, members of the jury, and all witnesses under oath will be required to lie about the real sex of individuals who identify as "transgender."

N. Exclude from all political, corporate, academic, professional, and judicial hiring and appointments anyone who is not a cheerleader for all things "gay" and "transgender." Grounds for exclusion will include failure to uphold the "civil rights" values of the organization or profession in question, making homosexual and transgender colleagues and subordinates feel "unsafe," and assumed bias against all clients and customers who identify as "gay" and "transgender." Commitment to treat people equally in the performance of one's duties will not be enough. One must declare unequivocal support for the "LGBTQ" agenda and reject association with, and donations to, any churches, para-church organizations, schools, charities, clubs, and social outreach programs that do not support that agenda. Any writings in one's past life history that are anything less than full support for that agenda will be deemed sufficient evidence for not being hired or for being fired. This will include quoting any teaching in the Bible critical of homosexual practice and transgenderism. Judicial nominees, membership in the bar, membership in the mental health and medical professions, indeed membership in any profession, will require a full vetting for "LGBTQ" animusthat will make the McCarthy anti-Communist Senate hearings look like an exercise in political diversity.

O. Reevaluate legal prohibitions and non-recognition of adult-consensual polyamorous or even incestuous sexual relationships, based on the principles that hitherto taboo sexual desires and proclivities deserve civil rights status, that binaries have no value, and that excessive formal sameness (whether in sex or kinship) is no barrier to societal endorsement.

III. Under the (In)Equality Act's new civil rights category, "pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition," laws like the Hyde Amendment that ban taxpayer funding for abortion could be eliminated, as well as conscience protections for health care workers who refuse to perform abortions. This is because the phrase "related medical conditions" has been interpreted by the Third Circuit Court and by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as including abortion. All insurances would have to cover abortion and health care providers could not refuse to offer it as one of their pregnancy services.

Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon is an American theological writer, professor of New Testament Theology at Houston Baptist University

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