But here's something that's also very interesting, even though Democrats in the house have a smaller majority, the fact is that that party is now so scared of it's left wing. It's almost impossible to believe that the Equality Act won't pass one way or the other, even if there's not a single Republican vote. But in the Senate, the picture is different because the Senate will require a super majority. It will require at least 60 votes.

There are 50 democratic senators. That means that if all 50 democratic senators support the bill, it's hard to imagine they will not, they will need at least 10 Republican votes. Right now, it's hard to imagine where 10 Republican votes could come from, but you can easily see 1, 2, 3, 4. As time goes on, there might be more.

One of the things we have to note is that Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney, we should remind ourselves, a former Republican nominee for the office of president of the United States, he said that he could not support the Equality Act because of its lack of religious Liberty provisions. Now, just in case you think that's a big statement, understand that what was really happening there is that Mitt Romney was sending a signal. The signal was this, "If there were to be negotiated some kind of religious liberty protections that he would accept as acceptable, that he might support the Equality Act." Well, if Mitt Romney of Utah might support the Equality Act with certain amendments, the reality is, it would be likely to pass one way or the other.

Here's something else we need to watch. There are numerous Republicans who would rather something like the Equality Act pass, get it done, get it off the table, get them off the political hot seat. There are some in the Republican party who would say, "Let's just get past this issue. Society is moving on. If we don't move on, we're going to get left behind." Most of them right now, can't come close to saying that out loud. They have to find another way to say it. We're going to be watching and listening carefully. We're going to see what they're saying when they say it, but we've been warned.

But let's just remind ourselves what the Equality Act is. Samantha Schmidt writing for the Washington post described it this way, "The Equality Act would amend existing civil rights laws, such as the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and the fair housing act to explicitly ban LGBTQ discrimination in the workforce, housing, education, credit, jury service, and other areas of American life." Now those other areas of American life are, need we say this, massively expansive.

One of the other things we need to note is that there are no truly meaningful religious Liberty exemptions or protections in this legislation. Now, why is it that way? Well, it's that way, first of all, because the Democratic majority that passed the bill in the last Congress doesn't see the need for those protections and actively opposes it. But the absence is also due to the fact that there are expected negotiations.

Now here's the problem for Christians. It's a dual problem. Number one, let's say that someone like Mitt Romney or another Republican Senator comes up and says, "Hey, we've negotiated religious liberty protections. Here's what you need to watch." Those religious Liberty protections will almost assuredly be merely for churches, synagogues, mosques, and explicitly Christian institutions serving a definable Christian purpose. And for instance, what we saw in the logic of proposed California legislation was that you can have a Christian university say, and most of that university would come under the Equality Act, no exception, but when it comes to, say the training of ministers in a Christianity or ministry department, there could be an exception. Here's what we need to note.

The freedom of religion, the freedom of religious expression, the liberty that is America's first liberty and religious freedom can't be reduced to that. If it's reduced to that, it basically becomes an iceberg melting in a larger progressive ocean. Part of what is explicitly left out of that is protection for Christians in the workplace. And here we're talking about Christian cake bakers, photographers, florists, just think of weddings, but of course it's a larger issue than that.

Now the Supreme Court has said, and this is the Hobby Lobby case. The Supreme Court has said that there can be exemptions, a constitutional exemption when it comes to privately held corporations, closely held private corporations. But you're looking here at a very thin hope unless the Supreme court rules far more expansively in favor of religious liberty. The fact is, we can't count on being saved by any court at any time, and the logic of all of this is rolling on.

The second issue to watch is this. You have not only some senators who actually want to pass this kind of legislation and move on, you have some who would even identify as evangelicals. I'll call them either in the mushy middle or on the left wing of evangelicalism, they see opposition to the LGBTQ revolution is the great embarrassment to Christianity, even to evangelical identity. They want to get past it. Some of them will try to find a way just like those Republican senators. They'll find a way virtually anyway, the fairness for all argument that has been taken on, even by some Christian institutions, evangelicals, and again, talking about those who identify as evangelical, but so far as I'm concerned are trying to redefine evangelicalism in a leftward way. The reality is that they are basically saying, "Look, we'll protect our own institutions. We demand an exemption, but when it comes to the people in our churches who work in the workplace, when it comes to students on a college university campus, when it comes to any other arena, well, we're just going to have to let that go." Well, I'm unwilling to just let that go.

Two other quick things we need to look at. I mentioned the Washington Post by intention. Samantha Schmidt's article tells us about the legislation, does a pretty good job of reviewing the legislative terrain, but there was an editorial also published in the Washington post. It was dated February the 19th.

So we're just talking about a few days ago and there is one particular portion of this editorial championing the Equality Act that I want to bring to our attention. The article actually ends, the editorial concludes with these words, "Some senators argued that the Equality Act lacks sufficient religious liberty protections." Now that's the opening sentence. Are they going to acknowledge a legitimate religious Liberty issue? We'll notice where the editors of the Washington post go. "But engaging in public commerce comes with a price. Business owners cannot pay their employees less than the minimum wage. A cake shop owner must follow health and safety regulations, even if he does not believe they are necessary. A landlord should not be able to refuse to rent an apartment to a gay couple. The government should respect private worship, but it also has a high interest in ensuring activities occurring in the public square are fair and equitable."

Wait just a minute, a bomb went off in that paragraph. Actually, several did, but the biggest one is this where we are told here that the distinction is between private worship and activities that occur in the public square. You'll notice the logic of the editors of the most influential newspaper in the nation's Capitol, one of the most influential newspapers in the United States, this paper's editorial board now makes a clear distinction between what they identify as private worship and the public square. Notice what they're saying to Christians is, so long as you keep your beliefs, and your worship, and your doctrine, and your ethics private, we're going to tolerate you because the constitution says we have to, but the moment you bring it into public, you're in our arena and we can shut you up and we can shut you down. And yes, that is exactly what the editorial board of the Washington post is arguing. If you dare to come out in public, we can't shut you up, we will shut you down.

Now we saw a matter of a couple of years ago, Frank Bruni, an openly gay, but quite intellectually honest columnist for the New York Times tell us that religious liberty is good in so far as it goes so long as it is limited to what we believe in our hearts, and our homes, that is to say, and in our churches. You'll notice that's the private sphere, the same argument. Keep it private. We'll tolerate you because we have to, but make it public, we'll shut you up, we'll shut you down. We need to notice right now what happened last week in the introduction into the United States Congress of the Equality Act, and we need to understand something else.

This bill would represent the greatest threat to religious liberty in imaginable decades in American public life. This would be the single greatest threat. It will be very, very difficult for any Christian college university to operate in Christian conviction. It would be very, very difficult for any Christian ministry that's not defined as a local church to actually uphold any historic Christian doctrine, but it has the full support, the eager support of the man who is now president of the United States and is championed by many for skillfully avoiding the culture war issues. We need to notice this. President Biden is not avoiding the culture war issues. He is pushing these issues as far as he can to the left, but because of the mainstream media want the push in the same direction, and because so many of the get along go along crowd are determined to move on in the same direction, they are simply applauding him for the fact that he says it with a soft voice, rather than with tweets, with a lot of capitalizations, and exclamation points.

This is what is the official statement from the president of the United States, Joseph R. Biden Jr. on the introduction of the Equality Act in Congress. He applauds the Congressman and the entire congressional equality caucus for introducing the act, then he says this "Every person should be treated with dignity and respect. And this bill represents a critical step toward ensuring that America lives up to our foundational values of freedom and equality for all." He goes on to say, "Full equality has been denied to LGBTQ plus Americans and their families for far too long. Despite the extraordinary progress, the LGBTQ plus community has made to secure their basic civil rights. Discrimination is still rampant in many areas of our society."

The Equality Act said president Biden provides long overdue federal civil rights protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity locking in critical safeguards in our housing education, public services, and lending systems, and codifying the courage and resilience of the LGBTQ plus movement into enduring law. The president concludes by congratulating himself upon the executive orders affirming the LGBTQ plus community and his first days in office. He goes on to says it's time for Congress to secure these protections once and for all by passing the Equality Act, "Because no one should ever face discrimination or live in fear because of who they are or whom they love."

First of all, I just want to say, here you see the kind of camouflage language. It's all about dignity and respect, but we're not here looking at any kind of dignity and respect for conservative Christians, Orthodox Jews. The millions and millions of Americans who believe in a revealed morality and can't define marriage as anything other than a man and a woman, and have the constitutional right to organize our churches, synagogues, mosques, and ministries in just that way. Instead, dignity and respect here is a one way street, but it's not just that.

Notice the formulation the White House has chosen. The president of the United States has affirmed LGBTQ+. The + is there. I didn't just read it. It's there. That plus we need to note has no limit. That + is there as a stand in for whatever follows and the president's own very deliberate moral obfuscation here comes down to saying no one should ever face discrimination or live in fear because of "Who they are or whom they love."

I'm going to state this right now, President Biden does not actually believe that. He is lying to the American people when he says that. He's using language he knows will be heard one way and understood another way. What is he saying here? He doesn't really mean there should be no boundaries on who they are or whom they love without going into detail. There are still sexual acts, sexual relationships that president Biden and those in Congress will be supporting this legislation do not, or at least do not now support.

But the fact is, this is the argument they think will win. And they have reason to believe that, because as far as we look at the last several decades and years of American history, this is the argument that has won. And by the way, I gave them credit here. I said this is intellectually dishonest, and it really is. But I also gave them credit for not yet being willing to accept everything that will come with that plus, but then again, these are the same people who were opposed to same-sex marriage and were opposed to the LGBTQ revolution until they weren't. So we need to note that pattern too.

See more here: https://www.christianpost.com/voices/the-equality-act-what-to-know-and-what-to-do.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3_5Y4mMY1bi48Cy8cxs1_3WZLjRN2PD5h4lJaC6feHjcExkt5cf6bBl54

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