Christian conservative Linda Harvey
claimed this week that an LGBT protections bill is a “fascist
attempt to dismantle the First Amendment.”
Introduced by Democrats last month, the
Equality Act seeks to prohibit anti-LGBT discrimination in seven key
areas, including credit, education, employment, federal funding,
housing, jury service and public accommodations, by effectively
expanding the Civil Rights Act, originally approved in 1964.
The proposed legislation has the
backing of Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton,
Martin O'Malley and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and a growing
roster of American companies, including Intel, Symantec, IBM, Orbitz,
American Airlines, Amazon, General Electric, HP, Microsoft, General
Mills, Google, Facebook, Nike, Apple, The Dow Chemical Company and
Levi Strauss, & Co.
In a WND.com op-ed this week, Harvey,
president of the Columbus-based Mission America, warned that the bill
threatens to “silence believers” and “essentially wipe out free
speech and religious liberty on the issues of homosexuality and
gender change.”
“The 'gay lobby' has tried it
before,” Harvey wrote. “But now that marriage is officially a
grand social experiment in our nation, homosexual activists have
moved on, updating and re-launching the next weapon of revolution.
And it's a whopper, one that potentially unites homosexual advocates
with defenders of Planned Parenthood.”
“Christianity is now a target to be
obliterated or revised,” she
wrote. “Everyone needs to make it clear to congressional
representatives that this fascist attempt to dismantle the First
Amendment, to defy parental authority and to drive Christians out of
jobs simply cannot happen.”
“The so-called 'Equality Act' is not
about equality – we already have that. It's about calling evil
good, calling sin a right, and about punishing and silencing the
voices of morality and faith,” she added.