"The bill represents the most invasive threat to religious liberty ever proposed in America."
“A piece of legislation known as the Equality Act is expected to be introduced soon by House Democrats. The bill’s provisions add the categories of ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ to the list of protected classes in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.” - TGC
This type of act was enacted in the UK and it appeared that they carved out religious liberty fairly well. Am I missing something here?
I’m not so sure UK is doing so well on this. These things happen very slowly. It’s not identical legislation—nothing in the US and UK could be—but in UK, there is a growing oppression of traditional Christian views. It will happen faster there because they don’t have quite as strong a tradition of free speech as we do here.
As one example, the UK concept of “hate crime” is much broader than here. You can be convicted of a hate crime when all you did was, literally, say something (from what I’ve seen on this, it’s like a civil fine you have to pay). So far, in the U.S. you have to commit a garden variety crime with a hate/bias motive—and we call that a hate crime, which gets you tougher sentencing (and lots more media attention!)
Anyway, all that to say that steps in the wrong direction are steps in the wrong direction, and it’s always hard to tell for sure how large the consequences might turn out to be.
Edit to add: Just saw this in the news this morning… UK Judge who had apparently had the nerve to say kids should have a mom and a dad. But at least he still has legal recourse to try to sort it out.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
David, my thought is that whatever the situation is in England (and I’ve heard some horror stories from there as well), it seems that too many are wont to use the protections already in existence (Masterpiece Cake Shop, etc..) as a bludgeon against religious conservatives. One would infer that if these protections are expanded, the beatings will only increase.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Discussion