(CNSNews.com) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement on Friday marking the fifth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell vs. Hodges, which declared same-sex marriage a constitutional right.
“Five years ago, our nation made a historic step toward fulfilling the promise of equality and justice for all when the Supreme Court unequivocally declared that marriage is right of all people, regardless of who you are or whom you love,” Pelosi said.
“Today, the love and commitment of countless LGBTQ couples and families enriches and strengthens our communities and honors our nation’s most fundamental values,” she added.
Pelosi also used the occasion to call for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.) to bring up the Equality Act for a vote in the Senate. The bill passed the House last year by a vote of 236 to 173.
The Equality Act, says an official summary, “prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in a wide variety of areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system. Specifically, the bill defines and includes sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity among the prohibited categories of discrimination or segregation.”
The bill prohibits an individual from being denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual's gender identity.
Progressives are constantly seeking ways to silence Bible-believing Christians. Their most recent is “The Equality Act,” which was passed by Congress with the help of eight Republican congressmen. Let’s be clear, this Act will “spell disaster for most Americans. It is nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to finish off religious liberty in America once and for all, and places Christians who believe in traditional marriage at grave legal and civil jeopardy.
Fortunately, it was not even considered by the current conservative Senate. Yet. As noted above, there is a new demand by the House Speaker for the U.S. Senate to bring the Equality Act up for a vote in Senate.
If it is passed by the Senate, the Equality Act will amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by adding to the categories protected by anti-discrimination laws “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI). This new social category of LGBTQ rights would join categories such as race and religion, under the assumption that one’s subjectively defined sexual identity is as fundamental and as unchangeable as racial identity.
Such a law would ban sex discrimination in public accommodations, which are redefined to include retailers, banks, transportation, jury service, children’s education, Christian colleges and universities, federal programs, and credit and health care services. The religious component is very significant. It includes the proviso that no one may use the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to maintain religious and theological convictions that might keep them from coming into conformity with the Equality Act in any aspect of their interaction in public life. (The RFRA was signed into law by President Clinton on November 16, 1993, to “ensure that interests in religious freedom are protected” by law.)
What could this mean?
Christian adoption agencies who refuse to send children to same-sex homes will be shut down.
Christian colleges will be obliged to accept LGBTQ students and provide them with their desired dormitory arrangements, otherwise government funds will be refused and the schools’ degrees and diplomas will not be accepted.
Christian businesses will likely be closed down, or viciously attacked by the pro-LGBTQ throng.
Christian doctors could be fired from their posts in conforming hospitals.
Christian school teachers will be forced to comply with imposed curriculum and gender pronoun rules which are an attack not only on the English language, but on the biblical sexual binary.
However, there’s nothing to worry about. According to Mrs. Pelosi, LGBTQ activity “enriches and strengthens our communities and honors our nation’s most fundamental values."
What is needed?
We must do two things at once: First, ask God to make us courageous enough to accept whatever persecution comes our way. It should never take us by surprise, since Christ promised us that we, like our Master, will suffer in this world. When Paul was converted, he was not only given a mandate to go to the Gentiles; he was told “how much he would suffer” for the sake of Christ. This experience will be ours too as we work to win the world for Christ through the Everlasting Gospel (Revelation 14:6-10).
Second, we must stand against an increasingly hostile culture. Yet we also take our stand while preaching the gospel of the Creator who became flesh to take on himself the sins of the world. Our gracious God alone can make sense of life. He loves his rebellious creatures enough to die for them in the person of His Son.
Only as we submit to God’s creational laws and receive His act of gracious salvation will we one day enjoy a life in which evil is defeated and we will live, perfected and delighted, in the company of the personal God, Father, Son and Spirit, in a transformed heaven and earth.
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“Deliver us, O LORD, from evil [wo]men; preserve me from violent men who plan evil things in their hearts; they continually gather together for war. They sharpen their tongues like a serpent; the poison of asps is under their lips” (Psalms 140).