Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. No person should be discriminated against in America. No one. It is a basic constitutional principle. We are all equal under the law, all of us. We have different ideas about music and food. We have different ideas about sexuality. We have different ideas about occupations. We have different skin colors. We are the tapestry that we talk about, and we are working to make a more perfect Union. I absolutely believe that no person should be discriminated against in America.

The Equality Act doesn't just make everything equal, though. It has a great title. Who can oppose equality? No one. It is a basic principle of American values. We don't oppose equality, but we do oppose when, through legislation, you take the rights of one and dismiss the rights of others and say: Your rights don't count, only this group counts, and only this person counts. We, in America, have tried to work together, in all of our differences, for over two centuries, to learn better how to hear the rights of another one, to accommodate, and to find those spots where the rights of two individuals collide and to work it out among each other. The Equality Act does not do that. I wish it did. It changes things dramatically.

Let me just give you a few examples. It reaches into high school sports and says for male and female sports, that individuals' sexual orientation and gender identity can move between those. There is no standard for testosterone. There is no standard for moving through transition surgery. There is no standard at all set on it. It opens it up for any male--biological male--to step into female sports on the high school level or in the college level or in the pro-athlete level and be able to move into that sport. That grossly disadvantages girls in sports, but their rights are denied.

We have already seen this in several States where State record holders for track, for instance--someone who was a biological male competing in women's athletics denying the other girls who were competing in that from opportunities for scholarships to college, to be able to move on to other athletics. Their rights were ignored because these rights were prioritized.

In adoptions, we need more adoption areas. We need more foster care in America, not less. The Equality Act says that if you are a faith- based adoption agency that only places children in a home where there is a mom and dad there, then you either have to change your faith or close. You have no other option. The Equality Act says to that institution: I would rather have fewer adoption agencies in America than have you open.

That is not protecting the rights of all Americans. That is not learning how to accommodate together. Why can't we have adoption agencies that do adoptions in LGBT homes and some that do adoptions that don't? Why can't we have both? Why can't we accommodate both? The Equality Act does not allow that

The Equality Act treats every job in America exactly the same and says that an individual who is qualified for that job should be able to take that job, regardless of any issue. Let me give you a first example of that.

If you have an individual going through TSA--and what a lovely experience that is for all of us--this Equality Act would say: When your alarm goes off and you have to get the full-body pat-down, a transgender individual could be your TSA person giving you the full- body pat-down. They would be required to not prohibit that.

Now, for some people, they would be like: I don't care. It is a pat- down. I don't care. For other people, it would be like--there is a reason why TSA has done pat-downs of a man for a man and a woman for a woman because there are many people uncomfortable with someone of an opposite gender who does that to them. They just are. Maybe you call them prudes, but we have honored their rights. The Equality Act does not. It ignores their rights and says that you no longer have the right to disagree with this, and you have to just accept it.

It also dramatically changes hiring in America in a way that is unexplored. There is a reason we send bills through committee, not just bring them to the floor and demand that they pass on the same day they land on the floor without going through committee. There is a reason we do that--because this bill changes the way hiring is done in America in a way that has not been tested for everyone.

This adds a new feature to title VII, where it says, in title VII, that you can't discriminate based on race, on sex--that has now been redefined, obviously, by the courts--on religion, all these things. It clarifies. You can't discriminate based on that. But it adds a new phrase on this. ``Perception or belief'' is the new phrase.

This is how that would be applied in courts. If I go to an interview in a job and I am not hired, I can sue that employer because I perceived they were thinking I was gay and so they didn't hire me, or-- because it applies to all of it--I could, actually, because this does expand this significantly, if I go in to get a job and I am not hired, I could sue them for not hiring me because I perceived that it was because I was a Christian and they didn't hire me. I perceived that it was because I was White that they didn't hire me. I don't have to prove anything. It is based simply on my perception or belief. That is an untested expansion.

Now, this term ``perception or belief'' is lifted right out of our hate crime statutes, but hate crime statutes, on their face, are all about the motive for it, and you are trying to read into a crime the motive for that crime. Now we are trying to literally read someone else's mind in a hiring situation and to say that I perceived it, so if you don't hire me, I can sue you.

Why are we doing this? That opens up litigation all over the country on every area, not just on this issue of LGBT rights--on every situation and every hiring because it is very expansive. We probably should slow down and look at that before we open that floodgate in America, but this does not.

Today is about demanding that it passes right away. Interestingly enough, as some of my colleagues have mentioned, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is wiped away in this and ignored. Interestingly enough, the Supreme Court stated just this week that on this issue, Congress should apply this. Let me read what Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan wrote this week, along with Roberts and Gorsuch. They said this:

Separately, the employers fear that complying with Title VII's requirements in cases like ours may require some employers to violate their religious convictions. We are also deeply concerned with preserving the promise of the free exercise of religion enshrined in our Constitution; that guarantee lies at the heart of our pluralistic society.

They go on to speak of we will have a case dealing with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Equality Act, instead, says: No, never mind, Supreme Court. I know that you are concerned about religious freedoms--Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Roberts--but never mind. Congress is not concerned with religious liberty like you are.

Come on. Let's work together. We don't want anyone to be discriminated against--anyone. We can do this in a way that accommodates everyone, and then we can actually work toward agreement.

To say it in the words of J.K. Rowling this past week where she wrote, ``All I'm asking--all I want--is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.''

Let's work together to get equality.

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