Fairness for All, Equality Acts are equally bad

Just before the U.S. House approved the controversial bill that promises to toss aside biblical-based objections, upend women's-only sports, and alter the historic Civil Rights Act, Representative Chris Stewart (R-Utah) announced his Fairness for All Act (FFA). He says the legislation aims to protect everyone's dignity in public spaces and adds that it "harmonizes religious freedom and LGBT rights" by amending the Civil Rights Act, protecting religious freedom in the workplace, protecting the rights of LGBT individuals, and preserving First Amendment rights.

"It is hard to really love our neighbors when we are fighting with them over whose rights are more important," Representative Stewart states on his website. "This country can accommodate both civil liberties for LGBT individuals and religious freedom. We have wasted enough time, energy, and money fighting over who deserves which legal protections, [and] it is time to define the federal protections for our LGBT and religious friends and neighbors."

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has declared that it opposes the Fairness for All Act of 2021.

"While the stated intention of the legislation is to protect both those who identify as LGBT and people of faith, we believe the protections for people of faith are insufficient and that the legislation will use the federal government to impose a new orthodoxy on matters of sexuality and gender on the entire country through the Civil Rights Act," says the ERLC.

Talking about the legislation on American Family Radio's "Today's Issues" program, Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council (FRC) called it Equality Act-lite.

"It's just as bad; it just isn't as in your face," said Perkins.

Emilie Kao, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, also has concerns.

"What it does is it basically adds sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, like the Equality Act does," Kao tells One News Now about the Fairness for All Act. "It imposes a sexual orthodoxy, but then it exempts religious institutions, and unfortunately, that is not enough."

While Kao deems it "a well-intended law," she says the Fairness for All Act makes religious believers keep their beliefs private.

"We can only exercise our beliefs in religious institutions like a church or a religious school or in a religious hospital, but we can't go out in the public square and live according to our beliefs," Kao explains.