FRC urges US House of Representatives to reject the far-Left Equality Act

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Thursday on H.R. 5, deceptively titled "The Equality Act." When it was introduced last week, the bill had 223 Democratic co-sponsors and no Republican co-sponsors.  Several Republicans who cosponsored the bill in 2019 have declined to cosponsor this year's reintroduction of the bill.  Family Research Council released a new issue brief today, "How the 'Equality Act' Is Actually Unequal, Unfair, and Unjust."

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins made the following comments:

"The Equality Act is a grave and treasonous threat to our nation's core values contained in our First Amendment. The fact that no Republicans have co-sponsored it, even those who co-sponsored in the previous Congress, underscores the Democrats' lurch to the Left.   This is a radical bill that uses the government to control, through coercion, how every American thinks, speaks, and acts on issues of human sexuality. It may be named the Equality Act, but as the details make quite clear, the only equal thing about it is how much damage it does to many facets of American life. 

"It is an attack on parental rights and women's sports, but to the millions of people of faith in this country, it is an egregious attack on the freedom to believe and live according to those beliefs. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act will be committed to the 'memory hole,' and we will then experience a devastating loss of religious freedom in America, and that will have consequences for all Americans.

"Activists in high-office, whom President Biden is working to appoint, could use the Act to punish faith-based organizations of any type—places of worship, schools, small businesses, adoption agencies, pregnancy centers, and other non-profit charities—that decline to surrender their beliefs on the family, sexuality, and even abortion.

"The Equality Act is a Trojan horse for radical Leftists, whose goal is to invade every square inch of America, even the homes of those who hold different beliefs, with the force of law. It will effectively cancel people of faith from civil society.  We urge every Member of Congress to oppose the Equality Act.

"This bill is rotten to its core, and its ideas cannot be salvaged by dressing them up into the 'Fairness for All' proposal – which contains almost all the same harmful provisions as the Equality Act, only with less extreme language and measures.  No Republican can claim to protect faith, family, and freedom and also support the so-called 'Fairness for All' bill," concluded Perkins.

Mary Beth Waddell, Director of Federal Affairs for Family and Religious Liberty at FRC, and who authored our issue brief on the bill, stated:

"In addition to obliterating the rights, privacy, and safety of women and girls, this extreme bill would politicize the medical profession, forcing doctors who provide legitimate hormone treatments and surgical procedures to offer those treatments against their conscience. It would put the threat of litigation over every medical professional who would dare to stand up for the science that indicates the harms of these treatments and surgeries, likely causing many to stay silent. The misnamed 'Equality Act' has no place in any just, fair, and tolerant society."

To read more on the Equality Act, visit: www.frc.org/equalityact.

SOURCE Family Research Council

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