The House of Representatives on Friday passed the Equality Act, which would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In hailing its passage, 236 votes to 173 (only 6 Republicans voting for it), the Human Rights Campaign said the Act was “the first time a chamber of Congress has approved a comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights bill that would finally provide clear, nationwide protections for LGBTQ people throughout daily life.” However, the Equality Act, which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include protections for LGBT individuals, is unlikely to get a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate. The Trump administration has also signaled its opposition to it. </s> Rep. Donna Shalala (FL-27) kept her promise to strengthen LGBTQ rights today by voting for H.R. 5, the Equality Act, landmark legislation that would extend anti-discrimination protections to the LGBTQ community with regard to employment, education, access to credit, jury service, federal funding, housing, public accommodations, and more.

“In Florida and many other states, LGBTQ Americans are still at risk of being fired, evicted and denied services because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Today, we have taken a crucial step in ending this injustice,” said Rep. Shalala. “With the passage of this bill, we uphold the human rights of LGBTQ individuals across the country, asserting that no American should face discrimination based on who they are or who they love.”

The Equality Act builds on decades of civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act. While federal courts and administrative agencies have already taken some steps to extend sex discrimination protections to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, the Equality Act codifies these interpretations into law. This explicit prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity provides clarity for employers, schools, businesses, and the public. In areas where sex discrimination is not already prohibited, the bill amends existing law to bar discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

The Equality Act has bipartisan support in Congress and the endorsement of over 200 major companies operating across all 50 states, over 45 trade organizations, and over 500 statewide and national organizations. Most importantly, the bill has the overwhelming support of the American people – with over seven in ten Americans supporting the Equality Act. </s> The U.S. House today took a long-overdue step by passing the Equality Act, a measure addressing the anomaly that federal civil-rights laws don’t protect Americans from discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. The legislation would cover discrimination in employment and housing, education, jury duty, and federal financial assistance.

LGBTQ-rights efforts have in the past divided Democrats, but every one of them, including those thought to be social conservatives, like Illinois’s Dan Lipinski, voted for it. But only eight Republicans went along, reflecting the bill’s ultimate fate in the GOP-controlled Senate, which will bury it. It would have been vetoed by President Trump, in thrall to his homophobic conservative Evangelical base, in any event.

Indeed, the need for such legislation (which would be of particular importance in the 30 states without their own anti-discrimination laws in this area) has been dramatized by the administration’s own discriminatory actions, as the New York Times noted:

House Republican rhetoric in opposition to the Equality Act fanned the usual tragicomic fears, as the Washington Post reported:

“It is bad for freedom to force small business owners all across this country to provide services or products to the public that may violate their deeply held faith-based convictions,” said Rep. Ross Spano (R-Fla). “Again, allowing the state to essentially impose from above top down its own moral codes and rules in place of those of the individual.” Many Republicans also warned that if the bill became law, men who identify as women would take spots on women’s sports teams or get their scholarships … Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) said Democrats were making bad laws just to protect the feelings of “people who are gender confused or suffering gender dysphoria, the opposite of euphoria.”

It’s increasingly clear that the concerns addressed by the Equality Act will become one of many issues where the nation’s direction is at stake in the 2020 congressional and presidential elections. </s> Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., left, is greeted by Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, as they and other advocates for LGBTQ rights rally before a vote in the House on the "Equality Act of 2019," sweeping anti-discrimination legislation that would extend civil rights protections to LGBT people by prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, at the Capitol in Washington on Friday. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) </s> (WASHINGTON) — Democrats in the House approved sweeping anti-discrimination legislation Friday that would extend civil rights protections to LGBT people by prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The protections would extend to employment, housing, loan applications, education, public accommodations and other areas.

Called the Equality Act, the bill is a top priority of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said it will bring the nation “closer to equal liberty and justice for all.”

Sexual orientation and gender identity “deserve full civil rights protections – in the workplace and in every place, education, housing, credit, jury service, public accommodations,” Pelosi said.

The legislation’s chief sponsor, Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., said it affirms fairness and equality as core American values “and ensures members of the LGBTQ community can live their lives free from the fear of legal discrimination of any kind.”

Cicilline, who is gay, called equal treatment under the law a founding principle of the United States, adding “It’s absurd that, in 2019, members of the LGBTQ community can be fired from their jobs, denied service in a restaurant or get thrown out of their apartment because of their sexual orientation or gender identify.”

Most Republicans oppose the bill and call it another example of government overreach. Several GOP lawmakers spoke against it Friday on the House floor. President Donald Trump is widely expected to veto the legislation if it reaches his desk.

At a news conference Thursday, the Republicans said the bill would jeopardize religious freedom by requiring acceptance of a particular ideology about sexuality and sexual identity.

Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., called the legislation “grossly misnamed” and said it is “anything but equalizing.”

The bill “hijacks” the 1964 Civil Rights Act to create “a brave new world of ‘discrimination’ based on undefined terms of sexual orientation and gender identity,” Hartzler said. The legislation threatens women’s sports, shelters and schools, and could silence female athletes, domestic abuse survivors and other women, she said.

A similar bill in the Senate has been co-sponsored by all but one Senate Democrat, but faces long odds in the Republican-controlled chamber.

A Trump administration official who asked not be identified, because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the president’s intentions, said the White House “opposes discrimination of any kind and supports the equal treatment of all. However, this bill in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights.”

Some critics also said the bill could jeopardize Title IX, the law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded education programs. Former tennis star Martina Navratilova co-wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post urging lawmakers not to “make the unnecessary and ironic mistake of sacrificing the enormously valuable social good that is female sports in their effort to secure the rights of transgender women and girls.”

Ahead of the vote, Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., called the House bill “horrifying” and said it could cause Catholic schools to lose federal grants for school lunches or require faith-based adoption agencies to place children with same-sex couples.

Neena Chaudhry, a lawyer for the National Women’s Law Center, said the bill does not undermine Title IX, because courts have already found that Title IX protects against gender-identity discrimination.

“It is way past time to fully open the doors of opportunity for every American,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., one of the Senate bill’s lead sponsors. “Let’s pass the Equality Act, and let us rejoice in the bells of freedom ringing for every American.”

In the Senate, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine also supports the bill, while Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is the sole Democrat who is not a co-sponsor. </s> The U.S. House passed legislation Friday that would expand Federal civil rights protections on basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, as it stands, only explicitly provides protections for race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The legislation, entitled The Equality Act, would provide the aforementioned identities with protections related to public accommodations, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system.

All five Minnesota Democrats in the House cosponsored the bill. It passed 236-173, with four Minnesota Democrats voting in favor and all three Minnesota Republicans voting against the bill. Rep. Collin Peterson cosponsored the bill, but was the only Democrat in the Minnesota delegation who did not vote.

Eight House Republicans in total voted for the bill, with two of them cosponsoring the legislation: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Rep. John Katko of New York.

“This landmark legislation will protect all LGBTQ Americans from discrimination in employment, housing, access to public places, federal funding, credit, education and jury service,” said Rep. Betty McCollum, MN-3“Minnesota has outlawed employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation since 1993, and it’s long past time the federal government do the same.”

A handful of states already similar protections to those found in the House bill and Minnesota is one such state. The Minnesota Human Rights Act was first passed in 1973, but amended in 1993 to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, making it the first law in the country to do so.

Minnesota Commissioner Commissioner of Human Rights Rebecca Lucero said her department uses litigation as a tool to protect all Minnesotans from discrimination, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. “We know there is a lot of work to be done in Minnesota and across the country to breakdown implicit and explicit bias and violence, especially against trans women of color and gender nonconforming individuals,” she said.

Explicit protections related to gender identity, like those that would be put into place by The Equality Act, are not codified into Federal law, although courts are currently deciding whether or not many of these same protections already apply under current law. The Department of Education under President Barack Obama did issue guidelines that extended Title IX protections of sex-discrimination to transgender students in 2014. Those guidelines were revoked last year by President Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The Minnesota Human Rights Act also provides these protections, and if signed into law, The Equality Act would as well.

“I do still think that Title IX does prohibit discrimination under transgender status, but that is something that will have to be decided by the courts,” said Teresa Nelson, Legal Director at the ACLU of Minnesota. “So having a state law that very explicitly says you can’t discriminate based on transgender status is very important in the absence of strong federal protections.”

Reps. Tom Emmer, of the sixth district, and Pete Stauber, of the eighth, did not respond to request for comment as to why they voted against the bill. First district Rep. Jim Hagedorn’s office said they would put out a statement on Friday but had yet to do so as of publication of this story.

The bill will now move forward to the Senate, where their version of the bill has 47 sponsors and one Republican co-sponsor: Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. Both Senators from Minnesota support the legislation.

“This is a way of improving protections for everyone: whether it’s their workplace, going to school, wherever they are in the public sphere,” said Sen. Tina Smith

The White House has not yet given a position on the bill, but like most bills to come out of the House, is not likely to make it past a Senate led by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Smith was candid about the bill’s prospects. “I hate to say it, but to be honest, I think the Senate has really just become a graveyard for almost all legislation. I’m not hopeful,” Smith said.

As to what she would say to her Republican colleagues, moving forward, she said that she wishes that the Senate took each piece of legislation on their own individual merits more seriously.

“Mitch McConnell has turned the Senate into a personnel agency for the White House. I think that’s a real shame,” she said. “I know that the Equality Act passed with a handful of Republican votes in the House and we should be able to see that same kind of bipartisan leadership in the Senate.” </s> WASHINGTON — The House passed sweeping legislation Friday to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity after an emotional debate that underscored the divide between the two parties.

Democrats cast the decades-in-the-making move to change the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a historic step to extend protections to LGBTQ Americans, with several gay and bisexual lawmakers emphasizing the need for the bill called the Equality Act.

Republicans warned of the threat to religious freedom and argued that the measure could undermine women’s rights, with men who identify as women taking spots on women’s sports teams and denying them athletics scholarships.

The bill would prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, education, jury service and federal financing, protecting people from being fired or harassed for their sexuality or gender identity.

As Democrats cheered and applauded, the bill passed 236-to-173, with eight Republicans breaking ranks and joining all Democrats in backing the measure. It is unlikely to get a vote in the Republican-led Senate, and the White House has signaled that President Donald Trump would veto the measure if it ever reached his desk.

The Trump administration has taken several steps to roll back or limit rights for LGBTQ people, most notably Trump’s broad restriction on transgender people serving in the military.

Despite a sea change in the past decade in public opinion regarding gay rights and the legalization of same-sex marriage nationally, 30 states have no laws protecting people and proponents argued that the measure would create a national standard.

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., who is openly gay and the chief sponsor of the measure, called it “a life-saving bill that addresses some of the fundamental inequality that still exists.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, “no one should be forced to lose his or her job, their home or to live in fear because of who they are and whom they love.”

And Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who is gay, tweeted his approval with the outcome and urged Americans to call senators and press for a vote.

“Thanks to the work of thousands of activists, organizers, and voters, the Equality Act has [in] passed the House. This is a historic moment for equal rights in America,” the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, wrote.

Republicans countered that the bill infringes on the religious beliefs of individuals and repeatedly raised the specter of women’s sports.

“It is bad for freedom to force small business owners all across this country to provide services or products to the public that may violate their deeply held faith-based convictions,” said Rep. Ross Spano, R-Fla.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said Democrats were making bad laws just to protect the feelings of “people who are gender confused or suffering gender dysphoria, the opposite of euphoria.”

And Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., described the bill as government-imposed discrimination against those Americans with “time-honored views” of marriage. She also wondered what would happen in future Olympics.

“It would only take three biological males who identify as female to prevent the best female athletes from reaching the medal stand,” said Hartzler.

Democrats dismissed the sports argument, with Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif., who identifies as bisexual, delivering an impassioned rebuke.

“I can’t believe I’m standing here and having a man telling me what protections I need,” she told GOP lawmakers, arguing that no transgender person is trying to “game the system to participate in sports.”

“You, my colleagues, are on the wrong side of history and we will be waiting for you on the other side,” she said to applause from Democrats.

The bill had the support of many well-known businesses like Google, Apple and General Motors. After passage, IBM tweeted a statement, “While this is a historic milestone to be celebrated, we know there’s still much work ahead. IBM will continue to push for final passage of the Equality Act to prevent discrimination against Americans for being who they are.” </s> A majority of states don't explicitly ban LGBTQ discrimination; the act would change that at the federal level.

On Friday, the House of Representatives passed the Equality Act, a sweeping new LGBTQ rights bill that would tighten existing federal laws on anti-LGBTQ discrimination, as well as provide protections for LGBTQ individuals in states where those rights aren’t explicitly protected.

What Is The Equality Act?

The bill, first introduced in 2015, according to Vox, and which you can read in its entirety here, is the first major Congressional effort aimed at codifying LGBTQ rights at the federal level. Friday’s vote by the House of Representatives marks the first time the bill has been given approval by either chamber of Congress.

The bill essentially adds sexual orientation and gender identity to existing federal law with regard to discrimination in housing, employment, borrowing, and in other areas. As the Equality and Human Rights Commission notes, the Equality Act “merges” nine existing federal laws regarding discrimination into one omnibus law.

The bill faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate, and it is unclear if Donald Trump will sign it into law. However, considering that Trump has, in the past, made policy decisions that are anti-LGBTQ (such as banning transgender troops from serving in the military), it seems unlikely that the bill will get Trump’s signature.

What Does It Mean For LGBTQ Individuals?

As The Advocate explains, the Equality Act insures that LGBTQ individuals cannot be discriminated against in key areas.

Employment: The Act extends federal anti-discrimination legislation related to employment of LGBTQ individuals. What this means is that a person cannot be denied a job on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in both the public and private sector. Exceptions are made for religious institutions, religious institutions of higher education, and certain advocacy groups (so, for example, an anti-LGBTQ advocacy group would not be forced to hire an LGBTQ individual).

Housing: Similarly, the Act extends the protections of the Fair Housing Act to LGBTQ individuals. The Act would still provide exceptions for owner-occupied rental housing that has four or fewer units; and does not extend to arrangements between individual roommates.

Public Accommodations: Provides the same protections for LGBTQ individuals that the Civil Rights Act extends to other minority groups in places of “public accommodation,” such as restaurants, sports stadiums, or movie theaters, for example. Exceptions will still be in place for religious institutions that only provide facilities for their members. So, an evangelical Christian church, for example, would not be forced to host a wedding for LGBTQ individuals.

The Act would also put an end to disputes over whether or not a baker could be forced to bake a cake for a gay wedding. Under the wording of the bill, a baker could choose to limit his inventory to, say, birthday cakes or graduation cakes. But if the baker offers wedding cakes to straight couples, he or she would be required to bake a cake for a gay couple when asked.

The Act also requires that businesses and public K-12 schools allow individuals to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity.

Borrowing: The Act prohibits banks and lending institutions from discriminating against individuals based on sexual orientation or gender identity. </s> The House passed legislation Friday to amend the decades-old Civil Rights Act to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Despite a sea change in the past decade in public opinion regarding gay rights and the legalization of same-sex marriage nationally, 30 states have no laws protecting people from being fired, denied housing or harassed for their sexuality or gender identity. The bill would prohibit such discrimination in education, jury duty and federal financing along with housing and employment.

“The ability to have a job, to receive medical care or to rent a home should not depend on who someone is,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said during House debate. “We cannot accept the situation where anyone in this country can get married on Sunday and legally fired on Monday because of who they love.”

Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.) was chief sponsor of the measure to amend the 1964 law, calling it “a life-saving bill that addresses some of the fundamental inequality.”

As Democrats applauded, the bill passed 236-to-173, with eight Republicans breaking ranks and joining all Democrats in backing the measure. It is unlikely to get a vote in the Republican-led Senate, and the White House has signaled that President Trump would veto the measure if it ever reached his desk.

Several Republicans spoke in opposition to the legislation, arguing that it violates religious freedom and nullifies women’s rights, particularly in the area of competitive sports.

“It is bad for freedom to force small business owners all across this country to provide services or products to the public that may violate their deeply held faith-based convictions,” said Rep. Ross Spano (R-Fla). “Again, allowing the state to essentially impose from above top down its own moral codes and rules in place of those of the individual.”

Many Republicans also warned that if the bill became law, men who identify as women would take spots on women’s sports teams or get their scholarships.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said the law would “subvert the purpose of gender division by allowing men to compete against girls.”

He said the legislation had “a clever name,” but was a “vehicle for harmful consequences.”

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) said Democrats were making bad laws just to protect the feelings of “people who are gender confused or suffering gender dysphoria, the opposite of euphoria.”
The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.