The LGBTQ Equality Act is Back, Jack!
Yesterday Democrats from both the Senate and House re-introduced the Equality Act that would protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations, credit, jury service, and federal programs nationwide.
An older version of the bill was first introduced in 1974, and an updated version to include gender identity was introduced in both 2015 and 2017. Also, according to the ACLU, the bill will prohibit the use of RFRA to allow religious-based discrimination. (Masterpiece Cakeshop, we’re looking at you.)
“If the bill were signed into law,” NBC News says, “it would be the first national nondiscrimination law for LGBTQ Americans.”
The bill has countless supporters, from Sen. Tammy Baldwin to 161 corporations, which include Twitter, Amazon, Google, and Facebook. Even most Americans, according to PRRI, support policies that protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination.
But will the Republicans support the bill?
Sunnivie Brydum of Rewire.News doesn’t think so. She writes:
[T]he likelihood of Sen. McConnell calling a floor vote on a bill that would make illegal many of the central tenets of Donald Trump’s operating procedure seems low. If the Equality Act were in force, plainly transphobic policies like the…
