Latest: LGBT Advocates Kill Their Own Bill to Avoid Possibility of Religious Protections!
Yesterday (Sunday) at 6:00 P.M., the historic 2020 General Assembly Session finally came to an end – all except for the state budget still being finalized. We will be providing an overview of the major issues and outcomes in the coming week, but first we need to update you on the status of the intense battle we’ve been waging over the major bills undermining religious liberty – companion bills HB 1663 (D-Sickles) and SB 868 (D-Ebbin), which establish for the first time in our laws, and elevate to a specially favored status, the subjective and fluid concepts of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (SOGI).
Last week, we informed you of the incredible progress we were making in amending HB 1663 to ensure needed protections for religious organizations such as churches, schools, and nonprofit ministries (Senate Approves Some Protections for Churches!). SB 868 had already made it to the Governor without meaningful protections for religious organizations, and we needed to get an amended version to the Governor so he could choose to sign the one with religious protections. The thousands of emails, calls, and personal contacts you helped make finally broke through enough to force legislators to act.
After the Senate agreed to add one of our key amendments to ensure churches and religious schools were not deemed “places of public accommodation” that would subject them to targeted lawsuits, the House rejected the amendment, forcing a Conference Committee (3 Delegates and 3 Senators) to try to work out an agreement on the language. (Note: In rejecting the Amendment on the House floor, Del. Marcus Simon again made clear that the intention of the bill is to control the employment decisions of religious organizations. Watch what he said HERE. Meanwhile, Del. Mark Sickles called out The Family Foundation on the House floor, falsely claiming we were misleading people about the bill. Watch what he said HERE, and notice also how he leaves “religion” out of the First Amendment.) When several conferees attempted to nullify the effect of our amendment and pass it off as the same thing, we blew the whistle on it. That stalled the process further and set it up for an ultimate showdown on the House and Senate floors in the waning hours of the 60-day session.
IN THE END, THE OTHER SIDE MADE THE EXTRAORDINARY DECISION TO KILL THEIR OWN BILL, HB 1663, RATHER THAN RUN THE RISK OF US GETTING MODEST PROTECTIONS FOR RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS PUT ON IT, AND VERY LIKELY ALSO TO AVOID MORE PUBLIC EXPOSURE OF THEIR TRUE INTENTIONS TO TARGET RELIGIOUS GROUPS!
Their decision was extremely revealing – just as their statements throughout this process have consistently been. (See HERE and HERE for the evidence.) Think about what they were willing to do to prevent religious organizations from being exempt from public accommodations laws – and merely as a POTENTIAL option for the Governor to choose from. With your help, we exposed the works that were being done in the darkness, and so they decided to kill the one bill in hopes of guaranteeing their desired outcome with the other.
There is simply no question now that for them, infiltrating the Church is the whole ballgame. While in one sense it's a mammoth victory that our pressure and lobbying campaign caused the LGBTQ advocates to actually kill their dream bill they've waited decades to pass, it also shows just how committed they are to ensuring that no religious organization is spared from the impact of their radical ideologies. For them, the battle between LGBT “rights” and religious freedom really is a zero-sum game.
Now we press on to the Governor, asking him to add those critical amendments to SB 868 so that churches, religious schools, and other faith-based ministries will not be targeted for attacks from the activist LGBTQ mob.
