Christian conservative Franklin Graham
is calling on the Senate to kill the Equality Act, a federal bill
that seeks to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and
gender identity.
The legislation cleared the House on
Thursday.
(Related: Biden,
LGBT groups cheer House passage of Equality Act.)
Graham, who is vocally opposed to LGBT
rights, including marriage equality, said in a Facebook post that the
Equality Act would create “a lot of INEQUALITY for Christians and
all people of faith.”
“It's just a smokescreen to force
Americans to accept the LGBTQ agenda and it creates a lot of
INEQUALITY for Christians and all people of faith,” Graham wrote.
“It punishes individuals and
organizations that disagree based on their moral convictions.”
“God made us male and female, and
that's it,” Graham said, a reference to the bill's inclusion of
people who identify as transgender. “With some 6,000 years of human
history, it has only been in the last few years that people have come
up with all of these additional designations for gender identity.”
“Ask Senators to vote NO on the
Equality Act – and PRAY for God to move in the hearts of these
legislators and open their eyes to see the dangers looming before
us,” he added.
Opposition to the legislation has
mostly centered on its transgender protections. However, it must be
noted that Republicans have opposed previous versions of the bill
that excluded gender identity, such as early versions of the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and other bills.
In an effort to gain Republican
support, Democrats in 2007 dropped gender identity protections from
ENDA. The bill cleared the House but died in the Senate.
The Equality Act is needed because a
majority of states have yet to extend such protections.