Dear Friends,
As a believer I am for equality. I support those efforts to fight
hate crimes and discriminatory practices that favor one group over the other,
so you would think I would be in favor of the Equality Act which passed in the
House in a previous administration and will once again be brought before the
House and Senate for another vote.
Most people I know are for equality. Isn’t equality something
for which we should all be striving to attain? Yes, but not as it is presented
in the Equality Act. If you are for equality, be careful what you wish for.
The Equality Act has some significant implications for people of
faith. It has serious ramifications for the church and other Christian
organizations that fear government control over their hiring practices.
It has particular consequences for organizations like Solutions Pregnancy
Center and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes whom our church supports.
It could force churches that hold biblical values on moral issues such as
homosexuality to hire people who oppose those views.
I am a conservative evangelical who puts my trust in God’s Word,
so like some of you who hold similar views, we have been swimming
upstream against a current of radically changing lifestyles and moral behavior.
The potential consequences as outlined below of the Equality Act
may not concern you. If you simply opine that these are the views of some right
leaning conservative Christian who is fighting the world’s secular
infringement on his or her rights as a Christian, you would be right, but so be
it.
Those who hold to the values found in the Word of God are in a
spiritual battle against a culture that would seek to destroy many of those
things we value and hold dear
Let me quote some of the potential implications of the
passage of this Equality Act.
“The Equality Act designates 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.
The Equality Act will 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
first, second, and third graders 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.
The Equality Act will 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.
The Equality Act will 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.
The Equality Act will 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.” Franklin Graham,
President of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association
People of faith need to be concerned about the ramifications of
the Equality Act. If you are concerned, like I am, about the implications of
this Equality Act upon our churches, schools, and Christian organizations,
I would urge you to make your feelings known to your senators and
representatives. And above all, pray, pray, pray for our political leaders as
they debate this issue which has such immense implications for those
institutions founded and sustained by biblical values.
Yours in faith,
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