‘Equality Act’ Is Proof Democrats Are Clinically Insane

 
by STEPHEN KRUISER

It’s nice to think that political opposites here in the United States of America can still find some common ground around which to bond and maybe get along a little better. There was a time when that may have been true. What was also true was that we were motivated by many of the same things; we merely differed in our approach to achieving and protecting that which was important to us.

Republicans and Democrats aren’t even on the same planet anymore.

Actually, this shouldn’t be a Republican/Democrat discussion. Conservatives and progressives are the ones with irreconcilable differences. While conservatives do have a strong voice in the Republican Party, the progressives are in complete control of the Democrats. There are varying degrees of it. It’s the nature of progressivism. No matter how far to the progressive left the establishment Democrats go, the AOC lunatic wing is never satisfied and wants more. Make no mistake though: they’re all off the deep end. In the House, anyway. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema over in the Senate may be true moderates but who knows how long they’ll be able to hold out.

The Democrats are now engaged in a full-frontal assault on both liberty and reality. It’s impossible to find common ground with that.

The House passed the thoroughly frightening “Equality Act” yesterday, which Tyler has an excellent post about it:

The bill would amend federal law to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, among other things. It would expand the arenas in which non-discrimination law applies and explicitly gut religious freedom protections.

There is a lot to despise about this extremely reprehensible legislation but I’ll just highlight a couple of things from Tyler’s post here. First, religious freedom:

H.R. 5 explicitly erodes the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), a landmark piece of legislation in which Congress and President Bill Clinton championed religious freedom by reprimanding the Supreme Court for trampling on Native Americans’ religious freedom in Employment Division v. Smith (1990). RFRA set a high bar for any government action that violates the right of free exercise of religion — any policy must be narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest and it must use the least-restrictive means to achieve that goal.

Yet the Equality Act hobbles RFRA for any claims involving discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. This isn’t just a conservative talking-point against the Democratic bill — it’s in the plain text of the legislation!

“The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq.) shall not provide a claim concerning, or a defense to a claim under, a covered title, or provide a basis for challenging the application or enforcement of a covered title,” the bill says.

In other words, the “Equality” Act explicitly carves out an exemption from the right of religious freedom — an exemption that only applies to claims of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Equality Act also gives federal protection to male athletes who identify as female and want to compete in women’s sports. My daughter was a college athlete, and this is a topic I first wrote about two years ago. This ridiculous kowtowing to a fringe of a fringe of the population is an outrage and an embarrassment. The party that fashions itself as the champion of women hates and disrespects female athletes.

Perhaps the clearest illustration of how off the rails this legislation is can be found in the fact that David French actually said something I agreed with:

Read more