Anti-LGBT First Amendment Defense Act Reintroduced in Senate
Republican senators have reintroduced the First Amendment Defense Act, which if it becomes law will give the federal government’s blessing to discrimination against LGBT people and others in the name of religious beliefs about marriage and sexuality.
U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and 21 GOP colleagues today introduced a new version of the bill, The Hill reports. An earlier version was introduced in both the House and Senate in 2015 but never advanced out of committee.
Language in the bill states that its purpose is “to ensure that the Federal Government shall not take any discriminatory action against a person, wholly or partially on the basis that such person speaks, or acts, in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as a union of one man and one woman, or two individuals as recognized under Federal law, or that sexual relations outside marriage are improper.”
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Examples of discrimination that would be allowed under the act, according to HRC, include denial of federally mandated family leave to care for a same-sex spouse, or turning away people in same-sex marriages from homeless shelters or domestic violence shelters that receive federal funding.
The American Civil Liberties Union likewise denounced the measure. “Families targeted by this bill could include same-sex married couples and their children, a single mother and her child, or an unmarried couple who are living together,” the ACLU tweeted.
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