Read More About the Equality Act 2019

Protesters gather outside the Supreme Court in Washington where the Courtroom on October. eight, 2019, as the courtroom heard arguments in the first case of LGBT rights since the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Susan Walsh/AP hide caption

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Susan Walsh/AP

Protesters gather outside the Supreme Court in Washington where the Court on Oct. 8, 2019, as the courtroom heard arguments in the commencement case of LGBT rights since the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Susan Walsh/AP

Updated Feb. 25, four:39 p.m. ET

The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to pass the Equality Human action, a pecker that would ban discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Information technology would also essentially expand the areas to which those discrimination protections utilise.

Information technology's a beak that President Biden said on the campaign trail would exist one of his top legislative priorities for the commencement 100 days of his presidency. The House vote was largely along party lines, passing with the support of all Democrats and merely three Republicans. The nib at present goes to the Senate, where its fate is unclear.

When Business firm Democrats introduced the nib final week, Biden reiterated his support in a argument: "I urge Congress to swiftly laissez passer this celebrated legislation," he wrote. "Every person should be treated with dignity and respect, and this bill represents a critical pace toward ensuring that America lives up to our foundational values of equality and freedom for all."

Just it'southward as well controversial — while the Equality Act has broad support among Democrats, many Republicans oppose it, fearing that it would infringe upon religious objections.

Here'due south a quick rundown of what the bill would do, and what adventure information technology has of condign law.

What would the Equality Human activity practice?

The Equality Human activity would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to explicitly prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The beak has been introduced multiple times earlier and previously passed the House in 2019. However, the police force's impact would be different in practical terms now than it was then.

That's considering the Supreme Courtroom ruled in June of last yr, in Bostock v. Clayton County, that the protections guaranteed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act on the basis of sex also extend to discrimination confronting lesbian, gay, and transgender Americans. The logic was that a homo who, for example, loses his job because he has a same-sex partner is facing bigotry on the basis of sexual activity — that, were he a woman, he wouldn't have faced that discrimination.

This act would explicitly enshrine those nondiscrimination protections into law for sexual orientation and gender identity, rather than those protections being looped in nether the umbrella of "sex." Still, the Equality Human action would too substantially aggrandize those protections.

The Civil Rights Act covered discrimination in certain areas, like employment and housing. The Equality Act would expand that to cover federally funded programs, too as "public accommodations" — a broad category including retail stores and stadiums, for example.

("Public accommodations" is too a category that the bill broadens, to include online retailers and transportation providers, for example. Because of that, many types of discrimination the Civil Rights Human action currently prohibits — like racial or religious discrimination — would now also be explicitly covered at those types of establishments.)

One outcome of all of this, so, is that the Equality Deed would affect businesses like flower shops and bakeries that have been at the middle of discrimination court cases in recent years — for example, a baker who doesn't want to provide a block for a same-sexual activity wedding.

Importantly, the pecker also explicitly says that it trumps the Religious Freedom Restoration Human activity (unremarkably known by its acronym RFRA). The law, passed in 1993, ready a higher bar for the government to defend laws if people argued those laws infringed upon religious liberty.

Under the Equality Act, an entity couldn't use RFRA to claiming the act'southward provisions, nor could it utilise RFRA as a defense to a claim fabricated under the act.

What proponents say

Supporters say that the Equality Act simply extends basic, broadly accustomed tenets of the Civil Rights Act to classes of people that the bill doesn't explicitly protect.

"Just every bit [a business] would non be able to plow away somebody for any other prohibited reason in the police, they would not be able to do that for LGBTQ people either. And we recall that's a actually important principle to maintain," said Ian Thompson, senior legislative representative at the ACLU.

The bill also would be national, covering states that do not have LGBTQ anti-bigotry laws. According to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advancement organization, 27 states exercise not have those laws.

Supporters additionally say the neb would cement protections that could otherwise exist left up to interpretation.

"President Biden issued an executive order directing agencies to appropriately interpret the Bostock ruling to apply not just to employment discrimination, but to other areas of law where sex discrimination is prohibited, including education, housing, and health intendance," the Human being Rights Campaign wrote in support of the nib. "Yet, a future administration may decline to translate the police this way, leaving these protections vulnerable."

And with regard to RFRA, proponents argue that the bill would keep entities from using that constabulary as a "license to discriminate," wording echoed by Human Rights Scout and many other Equality Act supporters.

What opponents say

The question of religious freedom is the chief issue animative people against the Equality Act.

Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the Academy of Virginia, has criticized the Equality Act since its 2019 introduction. He told NPR in an email that the law is "less necessary" now, later on the Bostock conclusion.

Furthermore, while he supports adding sexual orientation and gender identity to federal anti-discrimination statutes, Laycock believes that this bill goes too far in limiting people's ability to defend themselves against discrimination claims.

"Information technology protects the rights of one side, just attempts to destroy the rights of the other side," he said. "We ought to protect the freedom of both sides to live their own lives by their own identities and their own values."

Another key fear amid opponents of the Equality Human action is that it would threaten businesses or organizations that have religious objections to serving LGBTQ people, forcing them to choose between operating or following their beliefs.

Could information technology pass?

The Democratic-led House passed the Equality Act in 2019 with unanimous support from Democrats (as well every bit support from viii Republicans), and it passed in similar fashion in the current Democratic House.

The Senate is more uncertain. Democrats in the Senate broadly back up the beak. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, amid the most moderate Democratic senators, signed a letter in back up of information technology last year.

But the bill would need 60 votes to avoid a filibuster in the Senate. Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins cosponsored the bill in 2019, but not all of her fellow, more moderate Republicans are on board. Utah Sen. Paw Romney, for case, told the Washington Blade that he won't back up the act, citing religious liberty.

"Sen. Romney believes that strong religious liberty protections are essential to whatsoever legislation on this consequence, and since those provisions are absent from this particular beak, he is not able to back up information technology," his spokesperson told the Blade.

It's uncertain how other moderate Republicans might vote. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who supported the narrower Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) in 2013, has yet to reply to NPR's questions about her support of the Equality Act.

And while Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, who as well supported ENDA, didn't give a definitive answer on his back up, his response made it clear that he could object to it on religious grounds.

"Rob opposes discrimination of whatever kind, and he also believes that information technology's important that Congress does not undermine protections for religious liberty," his office said in a statement. "He will review whatever legislation when and if it comes up for a vote in the Senate."

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/24/969591569/house-to-vote-on-equality-act-heres-what-the-law-would-do