Every week at All Saints Church we put our faith into action — and this week we are asking everyone to send a message to their United States Senators urging them to support the Equality Act.
Members of the House of Representatives recently passed the Equality Act (H.R. 5) with 224 votes in favor. This bill is a piece of federal legislation that would for the first time include sexual orientation and gender identity alongside race, gender, religion, national origin, age, and disability as protected classes where federal law bans discrimination. The Equality Act passed in the House of Representatives in May 2019, but it never received a vote in the Senate.
The Episcopal Church fully supports people of all sexual orientations and gender identities as children of God and recognizes their entitlement to full civil rights. In 2009, General Convention passed four resolutions supporting the lives and ministries of transgender people both within and outside the church, two of which urged support of transgender equality at the federal, state, and municipal levels. Convention has supported similar efforts to the Equality Act such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which proposed including sexual orientation and gender identity-based protections in federal employment law (GC ’09).
Last summer, Presiding Bishop Curry and President of the House of Deputies Jennings signed onto an amicus brief with other faith leaders and organizations for the Bostock v. Clayton County Supreme Court case regarding LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace. In a historic decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. The Equality Act would also extend protections to include housing, education, access to public spaces, and more.
As it stands today, less than half of all states have explicit laws banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity despite broad support from the American public for providing protections. The Equality Act would guarantee these long-overdue protections in every state by providing explicit language for protection in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Fair Housing Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and more.
By advocating against discriminatory laws, by supporting non-discrimination laws, by seeking to better understand gender identity and expression as part of God’s creation of humanity, and by communicating our position as Christians to our leaders and elected officials, we make tangible our promise to respect the dignity of every human being.
