Perhaps the greatest external threat faced by people of faith today, particularly biblical Christians, is what we legal insiders call “radical sexual liberty.” That is, the growing popular cultural rejection of the fundamental reality that we are created male and female in God’s image, including the sexual norms consistent with these beliefs.
The Equality Act (H.R. 5), a sweeping bill pending in Congress, seeks to massively expand radical sexual liberty’s tentacles throughout federal law, coercively imposing a pagan sexual worldview on all Americans. The Act is the latest (and perhaps final) battlefront in a long-running sexual cultural revolution, one that the hippies largely initiated in the 1960’s.
For legal context, it is important to note here at the outset that religious liberty is expressly protected by the U.S. Constitution (enshrined in the Bill of Right’s First Amendment), while sexual liberty is not. But that fact has not dissuaded liberal moral revolutionaries, who view the Constitution as a “living document,” from tirelessly advocating for sexual liberty’s incorporation in public policy and law under the guise of “privacy,” which has been increasingly read into the Constitution and statutes by liberal judges over the past 50 years.
For historical, sociological, and biological context, the reality of maleness and femaleness, now suddenly derisively labeled the “gender binary,” has been the accepted norm in most civilizations for 5,000 years of recorded history and for very good reasons, including the complementary relationship of marriage for common good of humanity. Maleness and femaleness is overwhelmingly confirmed not only by history but also by biology and genetics. It is hard-baked into the very fabric of the universe by our Creator.
Do not be confused. Gender is not a social construct. Rather, it is the LGBTQ+ ideology that is a social construct, and a very recent one at that. As such, rejecting and defying the Creator’s design of the gender binary is about as foolish as trying to cheat gravity. But sadly, that has never stopped human fools from trying. The rebellious idolatry of radical personal autonomy (the idea that we define who we are, not our Creator) has now arrived at the truly insane place where we now question whether our physical bodies should align with our God-given biology (or our discordant feelings).
But how does such an extreme moral revolution occur? Simply put, it’s cancel culture writ large. As Theo Hobson, a British liberal thinker points out, “That which was repudiated must be celebrated. That which was celebrated must be repudiated. And those who will not celebrate must themselves be repudiated.”
Here, homosexuality and transgenderism, once repudiated, now must be celebrated. Judeo-Christian beliefs about human sexuality, once celebrated, must now be repudiated. And faithful believers who will not join the “party” and celebrate, must be now be repudiated. Just ask Colorado Baker Jack Phillips or Oregon florist Barronelle Stutzman.
Tragically, as has always been the case, the greatest victims of our increasingly insane sexual revolution are children. They include the aborted children who never had the opportunity to live. Children born out of wedlock, denied the blessings of a father. The sexually abused and sex-trafficked children, who are the victims of the libido’s tyranny run amok. The hypersexualized kids, corrupted and perverted at younger and younger ages by a pornographic culture and comprehensive sexuality education in our public schools. And now, gender-dysphoric teenagers, pushed off a moral cliff by foolish adults with broken moral compasses are victims. Should we really allow teenagers to inject sterilizing hormones (that will never allow them to naturally have children) and mutilate their genitals to conform to feelings that might change tomorrow?
But I digress, I am supposed to be writing about the Equality Act. Actually, this background is relevant, I promise.
So, what does the Equality Act actually do? The Act, which passed the U.S. House on February 25 and is on its way to the U.S. Senate, seeks to expand and coercively impose a radical sexual liberty worldview on a whole host of federal laws by inserting the words “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” (SOGI) into a myriad of federal anti-discrimination laws. As the Washington Post’s Samantha Schmidt explained, “The Equality Act would amend existing civil rights laws, such as the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and the fair housing act to explicitly ban LGBTQ discrimination in the workforce, housing, education, credit, jury service, and other areas of American life.” The sweeping nature of the Act, including “the other areas of American life make the Act’s reach massively expansive.
“Equality,” sounds so enlightened and progressive, right? What could be possibly be wrong with the Equality Act? Out of a moral context grounded in reality and virtue, nearly everything. Authentic equality is indeed a bedrock principle of our republic. The Declaration of Independence explains that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” While all people are created equal, not everything we feel or do is equal.
If we are going to maintain a healthy culture, we must have the wisdom and discernment to understand the difference between good feelings/actions and bad feelings/actions. Not all human choices should be treated equally under the law. Progressives today conveniently ignore the fact that the pursuit of happiness is actually the pursuit of virtue, not unbounded sexual pleasure. In other words, all people are created equal and are free to pursue life, freedom, and virtue. But the Act pursues a distorted and confused form of “equality,” one that is actually at odds with the Declaration of Independence.
Specifically, not all human sexual feelings, beliefs or actions are in their nature “equal” nor should they be legally affirmed as such. Simply put, some things are more “equal” than others (remember the Sesame Street song, “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is not the same?”). The same Creator of whom the Declaration speaks, privileges the committed lifelong relationship of one man and one woman as the only relationship in which human sexuality is to be appropriately expressed. Marriage and family are the most basic building block of flourishing individuals, communities, nations, and the world. All human sexuality expressed outside of this model is a corruption or a perversion of God’s best for us and harms individuals and society.
Furthermore, the Act ironically undermines the very “equality” it purportedly seeks to achieve by hurting girls and women. The Act very “unequally” destroys recently gained opportunities for girls and women. It forces females to compete with biological males in women’s sports programs (by allowing biological males to complete with biological females, based solely on their feelings). The Act undermines the privacy and bodily integrity of woman and girls who will be forced to share privacy facilities, including restrooms, with biological men and boys. This is fundamentally unfair and must be opposed if we truly love and value our mothers, sister, daughters and granddaughters. Many feminists are outraged, as they should be.
The Act defames change-allowing therapy, including that which is based in biblical principles, disparagingly labeling it as harmful “conversion therapy,” even if the person struggling against discordant sexual orientation or gender identity issues desperately wants and needs help to overcome homosexual urges or feelings that do not align with biology. Having worked with and interacted with the formerly homosexual and formerly transgender community, I can personally tell you this is a tragedy. By denying help to hurting people, the Act will cause a lot of collateral damage, barring many from getting the therapeutic counseling help and support that they really need.
The Act flagrantly transgresses the freedom of conscience of millions of Americans who, for religious and many other reasons, dissent from the radical new sexual orthodoxy. It coercively indoctrinates our citizens with un-reality, misinformation and deception. The Equality Act defies biology and genetics, by normalizing radical transgender ideology, seeking to forcibly erase the gender binary at all levels of society.
Like Orwellian newspeak, the Act seeks to manipulate, control, and punish our very beliefs, thoughts and words. Starting with very young children in our public schools, the very nature of reality and the English language (i.e. pro-nouns) will be distorted and abused. Reality itself is bent and distorted. That which is false will be called true. What is true will be called false. What is good will be called bad. What is bad will be called good. But this emperor is actually insane and really has no clothes. Therefore, we who still remain sane and clothed with our right minds in this crazy cultural moment, must not refuse to speak the truth in love.
Perhaps most notably, the Act has no meaningful religious liberty exceptions or protections. That is not an accidental omission; is entirely on purpose. Extreme liberals privilege radical sexual liberty (a fake new right) over religious liberty (an established constitutional right) and they view religious exemptions as a “license to discriminate.” It is certainly not lost on its authors and sponsors that the Act is a direct assault on the religious beliefs and practices of millions of Americans. Yet, rather than acknowledging religion, the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom, or making any attempt whatsoever to accommodate religion, the Act fails to carve out any exemptions or exceptions for religious individuals, organizations, or ministries. None.
While some misguided mushy middle evangelicals have suggested the Act include only exemptions for churches and a narrow group of religious institutions, perhaps including Christian colleges, the Act currently has no such protections. Furthermore, what about protections for Christian businesses and individuals?
As I have written elsewhere, a “Fairness for All” approach to these issues is foolish and is doomed to failure. The Act is not really about equality; it’s naked tyranny, disguised as equality in an anti-discrimination cloak and will unquestionably lead to the further erosion of religious freedom in America. Perhaps our saving grace here is that, because of the filibuster, passage of the Equality Act in the U.S. Senate requires 60 votes.
If the Equality Act demonstrates anything, perhaps it is this: Classic liberalism and its commitment to tolerance, inclusivity and diversity is a dead letter. President Biden in overwhelming support of the Act highlights the need to treat LBTQ+ individuals with dignity and respect.
True. But Christians, Orthodox Jews and other citizens who have a very different worldview regarding human sexuality are also entitled to dignity and respect.
But for dissenters in America today, especially Bible believing Christians, our diversity from the new sexual orthodoxy will no longer be included or tolerated. Because of our “thought crimes” we are no longer welcome in the “marketplace of ideas.” As a result, we are not just losing our religious freedom, but our freedom of speech, which includes protections for our religious speech. Under growing cultural pressure, many of us are submitting to the “spiral of silence.”
But if we are not far more committed, courageous and vigilant, we may soon find ourselves canceled, along with our freedom of speech and religious liberty. The hour is late.
Wake up America.
Dean R. Broyles, Esq. is a constitutional attorney serving as the President of The National Center For Law & Policy (NCLP), an organization fighting to promote and defend religious freedom. Copyright© The National Center For Law & Policy. Reprinted with permission.