“Have you been following this ‘Equality Act?’” a Catholic priest I know asked me as I passed on the icy sidewalk early Sunday afternoon.
“A bit,” I answered. “You can be sure anything that comes out of D.C. does the opposite of its name.”
“Check it out today,” he replied. “It could pass as early as this week, and it’s very, very troubling.”
The two of us went our ways, carefully navigating the icy bricks back to the safety of our homes. The monsignor was right, of course: If the Equality Act passes, he won’t be safe in his home much longer, nor will women be safe in their sports, their restrooms and locker rooms, the nail salons they work in, nor even shelters from homelessness and abuse.
The act, which the House is expected to pass for the second time in nine months on Thursday before sending it to a now-Democratic Senate, opens up swinging on Christian (as well as most religions’) concepts of morality in marriage, sex, and identity. It would strike biological sex from the 1964 Civil Rights Act, replacing it with “sexual orientation and gender identity.” Belief in traditional marriage, the act would legislate, is a specific example of illegal discrimination.
If the bill passes the Senate, our church parishes will become soft targets. While weak-kneed men like David French confidently celebrated the migration of drag queens from rowdy, seedy city bars to children’s library story hours as “blessings of liberty,” it will be curious to see what he thinks when parish halls are subjected to those same blessings.
It’s all made possible by massively expanding the government’s definition of bigotry, as well as the definition of public gathering places to include any place that “provides exhibition, entertainment, recreation, exercise, amusement, public gathering or public display.” When you add the above to “any establishment that provides a good, service, or program,” you’ve put nearly the entirety of American civic life under the thumb of radical activists.
Read the rest at: Attacking Christians
