Those on the left want everything to be “equal.” Those on the right appreciate that we must aim toward equality of opportunity and equality before the law … but, even those goals will never achieve perfection.
Democrats Jeff Merkley (OR) and David Ciciline (RI) have each introduced bills subversively entitled the Equality Act, S 1858 and HR 3185, which if allowed to pass would act as a supercharged version of the failed and likewise inaccurately titled, Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
The entire purpose of this bill is to provide special privileges for one small segment of the population who are homosexual, bisexual or confused about their sexuality identity, by adding the phrase “sexual orientation and gender identity” to more or less every federal law that has protections on the basis of race. They would change more than twenty-five provisions of the US Code, encompassing laws governing public accommodations, public facilities, public educational institutions, private employment, housing, credit, federal funding, jury selection, and individual religious freedom.
The “Equality” bill does state that in regards to employment, there will be no changes to current religious exemptions, allowing religious corporations, associations, educational institutions, and societies to hire only individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with their religious activities. However, the bill specifically says that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) CANNOT BE USED as a defense for individuals or entities to discriminate on any basis under any provision of existing law amended by the bill.
In the battle between special rights, for a very tiny percentage of the population, and freedom, the Equality Act would strip conscientious objectors of their rights and would, by law, require their compliance with the homosexual agenda, even though religious freedom has been at the core of our identity as a nation since its founding.
Laws like the Equality Act tend to be overly vague and broad in scope without clear definition of what conduct can and cannot be penalized, thereby allowing the scope of the law to be defined by the courts, exposing innocent citizens to ruinous liability. And it’s done on purpose.
This bill is the brainchild of the Human Rights Campaign, an influential LGBT activist organization, lavishly funded by traditional left-wing organizations such as the Ford Foundation, the Tides Foundation and George Soros’ OSI, with very close ties to the Democratic Party, particularly to Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Tony Bean, HRC cofounder and veteran board member donated more than $500,000 to the Democratic coffers in 2012 and was rewarded with an exclusive Air Force One ride with the Big Cheese himself. Obama also made a point to give Bean a “special” shout-out during an opulent fundraiser in Portland. Bean made certain that everyone on his Flickr photo-sharing site saw him gleefully rubbing elbows with Michelle, Obama, and Bill Clinton.
Bean’s luck ran out in 2014 when, after an intensive investigation led by the Portland police department’s sex-crime units and two county district attorney’s offices, he was charged with two felony counts of third-degree sodomy and one misdemeanor count of third-degree sex abuse stemming from a 2013 incident where the 65-year-old and his 24-year-old boyfriend enticed a 15-year-old boy to a Eugene, Oregon hotel after meeting him through the iPhone “Grinder” app.
In July of this year Bean and his lawyer asked a judge to endorse an out-of-court civil settlement with the teenager who had signed a statement that he didn’t want Bean prosecuted. The Prosecutor however, opposed any out-of-court settlement, characterizing Bean as a predator with a “history of targeting, grooming and victimizing young teenage boys for his own sexual exploitation” and included new allegations from a current prison inmate who told authorities last year that when he was a teenager in the early 1990s, Bean had paid him $150 on a number of occasions for oral sex. In a previous court filing, he had detailed allegations made by a doctor who said that Bean had sexually abused him in Eugene in 1979, when the doctor was 16 years old. The judge has yet to make a ruling on Bean’s request.
“What’s wrong is never made right just because everyone is doing it. A bad idea is not made better just because a lot of people agree with it.” Ralph Marston
