A Better Way

LGBTQ activists who say we need the Equality Act to end discrimination refuse to agree to a bill that would protect the conscience rights of religious traditionalists not to be forced to engage in messaging and creative activities that violate their faith. It’s not a big compromise; it’s a win-win. But somehow the activists and their progressive representatives don’t seem to be actually interested in winning (other than winning re-election for themselves and their party by keeping the issue unresolved, election after election).

Worth repeating:

More.

Anti-Narrative

More. Progressive Yale professor Greta LaFleur disdains Buttigieg’s marriage as insufficiently rad.

The Equality Act Builds ‘LGBTQ Rights’ on the Oppression of Others

Way Beyond Discrimination

The bill does not simply extend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. If only! As even the Blade reports, it greatly expands the act’s definition of public accommodations well beyond the original intent, and limits use of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a defense against state coercion to violate religious belief. Not to mention that it defines gender identity as based on presentation, not physical alteration and legally changed gender status.

“The Trump administration absolutely opposes discrimination of any kind and supports the equal treatment of all; however, this bill in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights,” an administration official told the Blade.

But already, news reports are saying that the Trump administration favors discrimination by not supporting this awful bill.


More. On Nov. 7, 2013, the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which would have prohibited employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, without the overreaching leftwing grab-bag of The Equality Act, passed the Senate with bipartisan support by a vote of 64–32. All Senate Democrats joined 10 Senate Republicans to approve the bill. The GOP-controlled House never voted on the measure.

It’s also true that during the first two years of the Obama administration (2009-10), when Democrats had majorities in both the House and the Senate that enabled them to pass Obamacare, they chose not to move the bill, even when it seemed plausible the GOP would retake the House. Instead, as with immigration, they decided to run on the issue yet again.

The New Culture Wars

Transgenderism has transformed what used to be the fight for gay and lesbian legal equality. Now, it’s something very different.

Every time the old Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was poised to pass Congress, activists and Democratic sponsors changed it so it couldn’t win majority support. First it was a bill to outlaw employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, and once that had enough Republican support to pass, it was changed to include gender identity, which didn’t. The Equality Act is ENDA on steroids, vastly expanding the scope of “public accommodations” to include creative-services providers (such as bakers and wedding photographers), gutting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and requiring that bio males who chose to “present” as female (no physical alteration required) be treated as women in all areas, including the right to compete as women in sporting competitions.

The GOP-led Senate won’t pass the Equality Act, and rightly so. But Democrats and LGBT progressive will say it’s because Republicans don’t oppose employment discrimination, as if it were the original ENDA.