House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said
Thursday that a federal LGBT protections bill would be introduced in
the House next week.
First introduced in 2015, 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.
“Next week, we'll be launching our
Equality Act to end discrimination for the LGBTQ community,” Pelosi
said.
Pelosi told the Washington Blade
that she was confident the House would approve the legislation.
“I'm very pleased because we have a
great deal of outside support for it, which I hope will help us pass
it in the Senate,” she
said. “We most certainly will pass it overwhelmingly in the
House.”
The following day, the Human Rights
Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, announced
that 161 corporations backed passage of the legislation.
Included in the Business Coalition for
the Equality Act are household names such as Google, Apple,
Coca-Cola, Facebook, American Airlines, Uber, and Target.
“By standing with the LGBTQ community
and joining the fight to pass the Equality Act, these companies are
demanding full federal equality for the more than 11 million LGBTQ
people in this country who deserve to earn a living, raise their
families and live their lives free from discrimination,” said HRC
President Chad Griffin. “These leading employers know that
protecting their employees and customers from discrimination isn’t
just the right thing to do – it’s also good for business.”