Senate hearing on Equality Act shows division among faith groups
NEW YORK — The debate over whether the Equality Act would simply extend needed protections to LGBTQ Americans or also discriminate against women, girls and public-facing religious organizations has divided even faith leaders.
A hearing in the U.S. Senate Wednesday chaired by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) highlighted that partisan divide, with LGBTQ rights pitted against religious freedom and women’s rights.
The Equality Act, which passed in the House Feb. 26 with only three Republicans supporting it, would add sexual orientation and gender identity under the definition of sex in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination. Twenty-one states already have legislation that protects LGBTQ individuals from discrimination, and LGBTQ people experience discrimination in housing and employment at rates similar to racial discrimination, according to the Center for American Progress. But the act would also scrap religious exemptions in federal law that say the government must have a compelling interest in order to limit religious freedom.
A June 2020 Supreme Court ruling already solidifies that sex, a federally protected class, includes sexual orientation and gender identity, but it recognizes protections for religious employers to make faith-based decisions that secular employers do not have. The Equality Act would take the ruling a step further by denying religious exemptions.
The act would also expand the definition of public accommodations, which would require religious schools and charities to allow transgender women into protected women-only spaces— for example, in domestic violence shelters and even some virtual gatherings— or risk lawsuits and penalties. Religious hospitals would need to provide gender-affirming medical care. Houses of worship may risk lawsuits for not allowing a transgender woman into a women’s prayer space. Practically speaking, a man could identify as a woman insincerely just to access women’s spaces, and the Equality Act would require organizations to recognize that person’s self-identified gender with no legal recourse.
“Any religious house of worship or faith-based charity that abides by restrictions based on biological sex… would be subject to a discrimination lawsuit,” said Mary Rice Hasson, a Catholic fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who referenced the Church’s belief that God created males and females. “It’s a radical change in the rights of religious Americans.”
READ: There Is A Better Way Forward Than The Equality Act
This week, Pope Francis affirmed long-held Catholic teaching that same-sex unions aren’t part of God’s plan for marriage and said “God can’t bless sin.” Under the act, religious organizations, including Orthodox Jewish communities, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Seventh Day Adventists and historic Black Church denominations like the African Methodist Episcopal Church hold theological beliefs that could be put at risk and even made illegal when acted upon in their ministries serving the public. Religious groups contribute an estimated $1.2 trillion of socio-economic value into the U.S. economy, according to a 2016 study published in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion.
The Equality Act specifically overrides the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which proponents say restores the religious freedom act to its original intent to not apply in Civil Rights cases concerning protected categories like race and sex. They argue the RFRA has been expanded after its bipartisan passing to “weaponize” religion in order to legally discriminate. About 83% of Americans broadly support protections for LGBTQ people, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.
“A lot of the arguments against [the Equality Act] are based on misinformation or deliberate distortion,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).
The legislation dates back to the 1970s and passed in the House in 2019 but was blocked by a Republican-led Senate. Still, it’s the first time a Senate hearing convened to discuss the act. President Joe Biden supports the act, but it needs 60 votes in the Senate, which will not come easily.
Proponents of the Equality Act emphasize that the law would not change what religious institutions and houses of worship believe, while opponents argue that’s not the point, and religious people have a right to live out their beliefs in the public square. More than 100 faith groups have endorsed the Equality Act, according to the Center for American Progress, and left-leaning faith-based advocacy groups have collected more than 17,000 signatures on one supporting petition. These are faith groups that affirm LGBTQ relationships and free gender expression.
“We’re all going to disagree about our faith,” said Edith Guffey, a member of the PFLAG National Board of Directors, an LGBTQ group, and Conference Minister of the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference in the United Church of Christ (UCC). She emphasized her belief that God created everyone equally, a common refrain among both sides of the debate. “What really matters is the law and that’s all this is about… equal treatment under the law. The Equality Act requires no church to do anything. If we stay in that lane that would be great.”
Guffey is Black and the mother of a transgender, non-binary youth. She compared opposing the Equality Act on religious freedom grounds to churches that once justified slavery. Many UCC churches recognize same-sex marriages.
“Oppression only oppresses us all and we pay a price for that and I believe slavery has taught us that,” she said. “Using the church and religion to justify that, that’s not religious freedom. That’s using religion in a way it was never intended to be used.”
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) cited his belief that God loves everyone and summarized several religious freedom cases that opposed racial equality, including the 1983 Supreme Court decision that ruled against the fundamentalist evangelical Bob Jones University that tried to prohibit interracial dating on its campus.
However, those opposing the Equality Act, including Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Sen. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) also cited their Christian faith and pointed out that they want equality for all Americans, but think the current legislation unnecessarily harms the rights of religious people, women and girls. Outside of the harms to religious groups, opponents emphasized that allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports with biological advantages would prevent women and girls from opportunities like college scholarships. Journalist and author Abigail Shrier testified mainly on that issue.
At one point in the hearing, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) pointed out that the Equality Act states that marriage between a man and a woman is a “sex stereotype,” which he said stigmatizes the beliefs of millions of evangelicals, Catholics and other religious Americans.
Responding to Cornyn, Hasson pointed to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s comments in the Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges.
“I would just remind the committee and all Americans how Justice Kennedy spoke about this,” Hasson said. “He talked about the honorable beliefs that people have held for centuries. People of faith need to have space to believe what they believe and live that out authentically. And that shouldn’t be disparaged especially in statutory language.”
An alternative to the Equality Act, the Fairness for All Act, would similarly amend federal civil rights law to protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination in employment, housing and other areas of public life, but also expand religious exemptions to anti-discrimination law. That would protect religious organizations to continue practicing their beliefs about gender and sexuality, like requiring a staff code of conduct that prohibits same-sex relationships.
Meagan Clark is the managing editor of Religion Unplugged. She has reported for Newsweek, International Business Times, Dallas Morning News, Religion News Service and several outlets in India, including Indian Express and the Wire.