With The Equality Act, Congressional Democrats Want To Redefine 'Sex' To Include Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

Here's why that's a bad idea—and it has nothing to do with God's wrath, women's rights rollbacks, or locker-room predators.

Dire warnings are circulating about the Equality Act—a piece of culture-war legislation scheduled for a vote this week in the U.S. House of Representatives. Its stated purpose, in brief, is "to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation."

The act would lead to "the death of women rights," suggested Missouri Republican Rep. Vicky Hartzler. "Religious freedom goes out the window if this bill becomes law," wrote Star Parker in millennial conservative outlet The Daily Signal, which titled the piece "Equality Act Is About Civil Tyranny, Not Civil Rights." In a Washington Post op-ed, three former elite athletes suggested that it would obliterate women's sports.

Pro-Equality Act factions have pinned high stakes on this bill, too. "In 30 states, LGBTQ Americans do not have the freedom of full equality," but "the Democratic House will take a big step forward this week by passing the bipartisan #EqualityAct," tweeted Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D–Wisc.)

The bill was introduced by Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat. It has 240 co-sponsors, including every Democrat in the House except for Rep. Dan Lipinski, and no Republicans except Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R–Pa.), John Katko (R–NY), and Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon of Puerto Rico, who can vote in committee but not on the House floor.

The Equality Act works by modifying the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Fair Housing Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and other federal statutes concerned with discrimination and segregation.

Its reach includes public accommodations, public education, lending, housing, federal assistance programs, Medicare and Medicaid, employment, housing, public facilities, and more. It would insert into all of these laws and existing programs a prohibition on discrimination or segregation based on "sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity)."