Now Is the Time to Pray—and Speak Up!
The Equality Act already passed the House and is coming before the Senate soon.
A piece of dangerous legislation inaccurately called the Equality Act was passed by the House last week, 224-206. The Senate is expected to take up the bill very soon, and the result will likely come down to a razor-thin margin. If it is passed by the Senate, President Biden will likely sign it into law as he has made it a priority of his administration’s first 100 days.
Every Senator’s vote is critical. This is a crucial turning point for our nation. I cannot say this clearly enough—for individuals, for businesses, for churches, and for ministries of faith, the Equality Act is a threat to life as we know it in our nation today. It’s a real game-changer.
The Equality Act will:
- Designate schools, churches, and healthcare organizations as “public accommodations.” With this, schools, churches, and hospitals could be forced to accept the government’s beliefs and mandates about sexual orientation and gender identity. That would be highly intrusive and incredibly far-reaching. It will threaten everyday speech where people can be fined or lose their jobs for using the wrong name or pronouns.
- Legislate that we allow boys in girls’ sports, boys in girls’ locker rooms, men in women’s shelters, and men in women’s prisons. It will force teachers and students to publicly pretend that a biological male is a female. Schools will be encouraged or mandated to instruct young children that they can choose to be a boy or a girl, or neither, or both—making biological sex (and science) a relic of the past.
- Use the force of law across all 50 states to strip Christian and other religious ministries of their right to hire people of shared faith to pursue a shared mission. Can you imagine a Christian organization being forced to hire people hostile to its deeply held beliefs who have no passion for its beliefs, teachings, and mission? That doesn’t work.
- Strip health professionals of their rights of conscience. It will force doctors and medical professionals who long to do no harm to engage in gender transition treatments such as hormone-blocking, cross-sex hormones, or surgery. It is obvious that a Catholic or faith-based hospital should not have to perform gender transition surgeries that go entirely against all they believe.
- Be a tool used by the government to deny or threaten accreditation to religious colleges and universities if they do not satisfy the demands of the secular Left to apply sexual orientation and gender identity to dorms, sports, places of privacy and even teachings. The Act could be used as a weapon to threaten the availability of federal student loans and grants to students at certain disfavored religious schools.
Friends, the impact of this legislation is immense. We must not remain silent and accept what we know is wrong. It is critical that you contact your U.S. Senators as quickly as possible and implore them to vote NO. The progressive Left are zealous about this issue and will pull out all the stops to try to make it the law of the land.
There are only fleeting hours before the Equality Act comes up for a vote again. Please contact your U.S. Senators—every day if you feel led—and urge them to vote NO. I also encourage you to let the White House know about your strong opposition to this bill.
Above all, people of faith need to PRAY. Churches need to recognize the significance of this and pray corporately, asking for God’s intervention and mercy to extend the religious freedoms we have been blessed with for so long.
Sincerely,
Franklin Graham
President, Samaritan’s Purse
© 2021 Samaritan’s Purse
PO Box 3000, Boone, NC 28607
833-746-4225
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