Rep. Chip RoyCharles (Chip) Conservatives Eugene RoyHouse step back efforts to reactivate allocations Lawmakers clash over arms ban in Natural Resources committee room, Rep Ron Wright dies after hiring COVID-19 MORE (R-Texas) pledged Thursday to oppose the Equality in Court Act shortly before the House vote on the legislation, saying it would harm religious freedom.
The Equality Act would extend to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act by adding protections to LGBTQ Americans.
Roy, in front of members of the Conservative House Freedom Caucus in front of the U.S. Capitol, said the legislation “trampled on the rights of the American people in the name of equality in the false name of equality.”
“This is a government that uses its power to tell us that we bow to the will of a cultural elite in this city that wants to tell us what we are supposed to believe. We will not.”
Full remarks by Rep Roy today @FreedomCaucus press conference on the Equality Law: pic.twitter.com/RPIbzdSMwv
– Press Office of Representative Chip Roy (@RepChipRoy) February 25, 2021
Roy argued that the legislation would affect the rights of people who for religious reasons did not agree to extend protections to gay and transgender Americans.
He and other people opposed to the legislation, in particular, have criticized the law’s ban on facilities receiving federal funding to block transgender people from restrooms that fit their gender identity.
“We will continue to fight it in the courts and beyond,” Roy said.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), Who was present with Roy in her speech, has been strongly opposed to the Equality Act, maintaining a growing dispute with Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.). ), is transgender. Newman placed a transgender equality banner outside his office on Wednesday, to which Greene responded by putting up a sign outside his office that read, “There are TWO genders: MALE AND FEMALE.”
The bill would prohibit discrimination on the grounds of “sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity” in public spaces, such as facilities that receive federal funding, as well as in places of education and employment.
The bill would also prohibit people from blocking shared spaces that fit their gender identity, such as restrooms and changing rooms.
President Biden
Joe BidenKlain on Manchin’s objection to Neera Tanden: “Senators don’t respond to us in the White House” Senators have not given a timeline on removing the National Guard Capitol fence. | Biden reads a report on the assassination of Khashoggi Austin emphasizes vaccine safety in the new MORE video he has put his support behind the bill, urging Congress last week to pass it quickly.
“All people should be treated with dignity and respect, and this bill represents a critical step toward ensuring that America meets our core values of equality and freedom for all,” Biden said in a statement.