The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has just passed the groundbreaking Equality Act, legislation designed to amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include protections for LGBTQ Americans. If signed into law, discrimination against queer people would become illegal nationwide.
The bill passed with a vote of 236-173 with most Democrats voting in favor. Legislators had sought to pass versions of the bill as early as 1974. At the time, that version included only language prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Versions of the current bill which extend protection to gender identity failed to pass in 2014 and 2017.
Related: Aussie Equality Act Study Sitting in Committee
The bill now heads to the Republican-controlled Senate, where political commentators have widely predicted it will fail to pass. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has expressed his opposition to LGBTQ rights on numerous occasions. Even if the Senate were to pass the bill, it would also have to survive the desk of Donald Trump, who has also expressed his opposition. A senior administration official told The Washington Blade: “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.”
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Trump had expressed support for amending the Civil Rights Act to include LGBTQ protections in 2000. His turnabout is just the latest in a series of flip-flops against the queer community.
Juanjo
“Conscience” rights?? In other words, the right of some bigot to refuse to acknowledge in any form the right of gay people to exists and free and equal citizens of this republic. The right of that same bigot to refuse to sell or buy from a gay person, to rent to a gay person, to work, or in any other fashion to be treated as an equal simply because the bigot does not like gay people.
iamru2
Says the biggest racist bigot on Queerty!
RExxx59A
Juano-You and I seem to have really annoyed the POS troll – iamru2. His response to your post is just another indication of his lack of intelligence, spirituality, common decency, morals, and the inability to differentiate between right & wrong. He certainly never would have made the debate team. Namaste & HUGS.
iamru2
Tee hee poor whittle baby someone said something your fragile infantile little brain can’t handle! Be the change you wish to see in the world!
white-queer-african
MAGA……more like ATLSOTW……
America The Laughing Stock Of The World!
Josh447
I heard from the floor debate it’s the trans inclusion that has the GOP doing back flips. Why LGBs ever hooked that trailer to our already ever heavy bus load is beyond me. It’s not a sexual orientation. Should have been a separate scene altogether.
If this bill passes the senate and Trump it will be the day after hell freezes over.
Aires the Ram
@Josh447, Exactly Josh. How could anything pass with all the cars we’ve hooked up to the train?
Lesbian-Gay-Bi, sure, ok, but all this TQABCDEDFHIJKLMNOP crap has only served to water down the fact that homosexual and bi-sexual men and women should not be discriminated against. Nobody should be discriminated against if they’re within the realm of the laws of the United States, but as they say, “Too many cooks spoil the stew.”
Sass-zilla
The issues with the bill as currently written are:
That it “Expands the categories of public accommodations to include or establishments that provide:
exhibitions, recreation, exercise, amusement, gatherings, or displays; goods, services, or programs, including a store, a shopping center, an online retailer or service provider, a salon, a bank, a gas station, a food bank, a service or care center, a shelter, a travel agency, a funeral parlor, or a health care, accounting, or legal service or transportation”
Instead of actual ‘public accommodation’ meaning ‘businesses that are open to the general public’, it takes over the individual sovereignty of a private business, which is anti-American. This means private businesses and artisans will be told who they have to have as clients enforced by the power of the Federal Government.
Also, it is way too broad in creating protected classes based concepts that have now become poorly understood:
“Requires protections against discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin…. Prohibits the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 from providing a claim, defense, or basis for challenging such protections.”
There are tons of places for unintended consequences to happen with this Bill as it is currently written. Examples: Jewish artist cannot refuse to design Nazi propaganda, Muslim mosques being forced to host gay marriages or funeral services, men going into protected all women spaces (abuse shelters, rehab, etc), men competing in women’s sports clubs, no all-male sex clubs, no private gyms, etc.
Currently the understanding of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity are not clear in the average person’s mind, yet the Federal Government is going to enforce these beliefs. For instance, I could go into a woman only gym like “Shapes” or “Curves” as a 200 lb muscle-man with a bushy beard, bring my friends and take over that space legally. If you don’t let me, The DOJ will sue you out of existence.
It is definitely against Religion. It is specifically against and basically ends The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, making religious practices subject to the Federal Government.
It gives more power to the Federal Government and this would definitely start infringing on the 1st Amendment. Specifically, the 1st A’s free exercise of speech and (more importantly) it’s prohibition on the abridging of speech and religion and the freedom to criticize the government (it leaves the 1st A’s right to peaceful assembly and freedom of press alone at least). This is government-imposed belief dictation. Basically, if you don’t believe the way the Federal Government forces you to believe, you will be punished.
This is a draconian way to force “equality” instead of growing equality through the market-place of ideas, that our country was created to increase and improve, not stifle.
PinkoOfTheGange
There is no constitutional right to open/operate a business and actually when pulling a business license the operator agrees to run that business according to all the laws of that jurisdiction willfully agreeing to give up some rights that they still hold as private citizens outside the business.
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, is the ruling that states your opinion on the constitutionality of federal regulation of public accommodations is wrong.
Aires the Ram
@Sass-zilla, Very well written, thank you for that. I didn’t do the research you did. Hands down, this would be a very bad bill if it were ever passed. But it’s not going to happen. We certainly don’t need more Federal Government control over our lives, and abridging our Constitutional rights. I am dead-set against it. “Those who would give up their freedom, for a little bit of safety, deserve neither.”
Mick406
Sass-zilla
You sure did your homework! Nice job. There’s always the other side of the coin.
I only opened this story up to read it because I knew the headline MUST be misleading . . . they usually are.
The story contradicts itself in two or three places. First, Trump is against EVERYBODY and then he’s for LGBTQ and whatever letters needed to be added, then it’s the mean ole Republicans trying to destroy the sweet little ole Democrats who are in favor of EVERYTHING (especially if Trump is for it) just to get all the votes they can. I knew there must be some REAL ramifications of such a broadly worded bill.
Frankly, it gives free license for a bunch of fags to come to a community park (or most anywhere) with little children there with their parents, and then strip to minimum clothing and flaunt all kinds of kissing and sexual groping and strutting. Most ‘normal’ gay people don’t want that shit either! A bunch of loopy fags out to bitch slap a lot of innocent people with their histrionics and DEMANDING they accept their lifestyle.
Ya know why gay people and all the other ‘sexually different’ people are so feared and maligned by the general population? It is their public behavior! The gays who march and wear outlandish attire and want all these ‘equalities’ are like giving the Hell’s Angels full license to ride their motorcycles through kid’s playgrounds, down the middle of a church aisle, or in a restaurant, inside a shopping mall, or in a business, going anywhere they please, running roughshod over everybody and mainly to disrupt. “Look at me. I can do anything I want to and can ruin your day. It’s my right! The gub’ment said so!”
I’ve done my share of homo activities but I have never infringed on the rights of someone else and shoved my sexual conduct down the throats of other people (No pun in intended! Ha.) There is also the enormous cost factor for making changes, like restrooms, to accommodate all the various forms of ‘gender’ being invented. Some places are still trying to afford to build handicap ramps at their businesses. This is nuts!
I have never seen anything yet that Trump has done to infringe on me or deny my rights. Why don’t the liberal gays take a rest . . . go out and help someone . . . do something productive other than sit around and bitch all day?!!!
Aires the Ram
@Mick406, Absolutely right on the money!
Wolfwalk
Trump tweeted in 2016: “Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.” He was believed by only fools and Republicans. But I repeat myself.
Gary Q VV
He even held a rally to fool the fools. I recall hearing from a few gays saying, “Oh, he’s my president! “. How sickening is was.
iamru2
The “ gender identity “ BS portion is what will kill it in the senate and rightfully so!
Gary Q VV
So true… so rightfully true. Too bad.
SportGuy
More proof that donnie dotard and repubs are disgusting pieces of trash.
Gary Q VV
At the risk of ruffling some feathers, I’m still compelled to make this comment. There must be an amending to the 1964 Civil Rights Act which includes only the following: “outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or national origin. We Gays and Lesbians have fought a long arduous battle, a dangerous battle, a battle that has experienced tragedy, this amending is our due right and reward. One day our fellow Queer LGBTQ++++ will come. But we LG persons must crack that barrier first to allow our entire family in. This isn’t a free-for-all, so get organized, active, and work hard so that one day your time will come, too.
Creamsicle
This is is just a PR stunt. Democrats know it won’t pass, but it plays well to the most vocal voters on the left. If Democrats actually cared about this, they would have done this early I to Obama’s first term, when they had a Democratic President and a majority in both houses. They spent all their political capital passing the ACA instead, which is arguably more important, but it didn’t go far enough.
Democratic voters are trending unapologetically to the left and some are even seriously talking about alternatives to unfettered capitalism. The Democratic leadership is arguably Center-Right. They’re too afraid to be seen as anti-capitalist, and so they stand for basically nothing right now. Without a unifying principle, they are the same as the GOP of 4 years ago; the Party of No.
But the republic is in a serious crisis right now. And the only thing the Democratic leadership cares about right now is, “who can raise the most money?” Pelosi is not going to save us. We need new blood like AOC to come in and show the world what a new generation of Americans has to offer. We need leaders who will have to live in a post +2° C planet Earth to make the decisions, not these septagenareons who only care about lining their own pockets before they become worm food.
Aires the Ram
@Creamsicle, If you seriously believe that the likes of AOC, Omar and a couple of others just as radically communist leftist as they are, are what is ‘needed’ in this country, you either have the delusion that people living in the US have it badly, or that homosexuals here have it badly, or some other such rubbish that shows how little you know of the real world around us. Crack open a book on world history, crack open a book on European history, crack open a book on American history, you just might learn something someday.
Kangol2
@AirestheRam, you actually typed “radically communist leftist”, underscoring the fact that you clearly have zero concept of what Communism is! Please, do a bit of reading before throwing out terms like that. They are social democrats, and espouse some socialist ideas, but AOC, Ilhan Omar, and no other sitting Democratic Congresspeople are “Communists.” Get a grip and “crack open a book,” like the Communist Manifesto, or any legitimate history of the Soviet Union, China under Mao Tse-Tung, etc. yourself.
Thad
This discussion is making me sad. I thought everyone would be in favor of laws against discrimination of EVERYONE on the LGBTQI spectrum. They’re my brothers and sisters and worthy of protection.
Thanks to House members who realize this.
Tombear
Unfortunately the equality act will be dead on arrival when it gets to the Senate.