“The nation’s patchwork of protections for the LGBTQ community falls well short of ensuring life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' Republican Rep. Will Hurd said after voting for the bill.
In a historic vote on Friday, the Democratic-led House of Representatives passed the Equality Act, a bill that would prohibit discrimination against the LGBTQ community in the United States. The bill marks the first time in American history that an LGBTQ civil rights bill has passed a chamber of Congress. Just a handful of Republicans voted in favor of the bill.
Only 21 states and the District of Columbia currently protect LGBT people from housing discrimination; criminal codes that specifically identify LGBT hate crimes only exist in 20 states plus D.C.; and LGBT employees in 29 states face the prospect of workplace discrimination without explicit legal recourse, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
“LGBTQ Americans are part of the fabric of our society and should be free to exercise the rights guaranteed to every American by the Constitution to participate fully in our society and pursue every opportunity,” Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, who voted for the bill, told Newsweek. Religious liberty concerns were dominant in Republican circles on Friday as, but for their eight defectors, the party stood unified in opposition to the Equality Act. This was, in part, because the bill stripped away religious exemptions under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that critics argue allow discrimination to persist even when non-discrimination ordinances are passed.
Debate over so-called conscience protections have arisen whenever the federal government has moved to ensure fairness in the public square. When the Affordable Care Act required employers offering health insurance to include plans that provide for birth control, religious institutions took their objections to the Supreme Court. And right after the high court’s 1973 decision in Roe v.
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