The Republican National Committee (RNC)
recently approved a resolution backing passage of a bill that seeks
to protect opponents of marriage equality.
Introduced June 17 by Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho, the First
Amendment Defense Act (FADA) seeks to bar federal “discriminatory
action” against those who oppose such unions based on a “religious
belief or moral conviction.”
“The Federal Government shall not
take any discriminatory action against a person, wholly or partially
on the basis that such person believes or acts in a religious belief
or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the
union of one man and one woman, or that sexual relations are properly
reserved to such a marriage,” the bill states.
Ellen Barrosse, the RNC chair of the
Conservative Steering Committee, told The
Daily Signal that the resolution is “an attempt, for those
of us who are people of faith, to protect religious organizations.”
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the
nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, condemned the RNC's action.
“The right to believe is fundamental,
but the right to use taxpayer dollars to promote discrimination is
not,” said
JoDee Winterhof, senior vice president for policy and political
affairs for the Human Rights Campaign. “It's no wonder the RNC
attempted to keep quiet its support for a reckless and irresponsible
bill that would promote discrimination with taxpayers’ money and
reward discriminatory actions by federal employees with taxpayer
funding. Those Republican candidates who choose not to speak out
against this RNC resolution should not be shocked when LGBT Americans
choose to not give them the benefit of the doubt next November.”