Catholic League president Bill Donohue warned Monday that the Equality Act would “promote the most comprehensive assault on Christianity ever written into law.”
While its proponents insist that the Equality Act is about “ending discrimination,” it would in fact fundamentally alter the legal definition of sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity, Dr. Donohue argues.
The Act would also undermine the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by conferring special status on gay rights, prioritizing them over religious freedom and conscience rights, he added.
The Equality Act would also require healthcare providers to provide “hormone therapies and surgical procedures that are required to change the physical characteristics associated with sex changes,” Donohue observes, without regard for the beliefs of healthcare workers.
“It has become increasingly clear that the expansion of rights to transgender women — really biological males who identify as female — has come at the expense of rights for biological females,” Donohue adds.
“Boys and men would be allowed to compete in sports with girls and women, thus unfairly altering women’s athletics,” he writes. Moreover, “biological males can use the locker rooms, restrooms and shower facilities that have always been reserved for females.”
This would also mean that “Catholics, evangelicals, Orthodox Jews, Mormons, Muslims, and many other religious communities could not raise religious liberty objections to any of the aforementioned rights of transgender women,” Donohue warns.
“It is hard for the public to understand, especially Catholics, why such allegedly ‘devout Catholics’ as Biden and Pelosi would want to champion such patently anti-Christian legislation as the Equality Act,” he concludes.
On its website, the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Conference warns that the Equality Act would “discriminate against people of faith” and “punish faith-based organizations, such as charities and schools who serve everyone in their communities, simply because of their beliefs.”
The proposed legislation would also “force girls and women to compete against boys and men for limited opportunities in sports, and to share locker rooms and shower spaces with biological males who identify as women,” the bishops note.
It would also “force people in everyday life, and especially health care workers, to support gender transition,” they add.
Last week, Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann said Biden should “stop defining himself as a devout Catholic and acknowledge that his view on abortion is contrary to Catholic moral teaching.”
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