Equality Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 5, which many have already labeled the inequality act because of the deep flaws contained in this bill.
H.R. 5 will undermine women's rights. It will strip parental rights. It will gut religious freedom, and it will open a Pandora's box of a universal right to abortion. And that is just to name a few of the legislation's outrageous provisions.
In addition to the well-founded, substantive concerns that you will hear a lot about in the next 45 minutes, the majority has decided to throw process out the window. They brought this bill directly to the floor.
We sit on the Judiciary Committee. We should have had a robust discussion on the impacts of the legislation. We didn't. There has been no committee action. There has been no hearing, no deliberation at all by the committee of appropriate jurisdiction. And I think, many of us think, that the reason for that is because the proponents didn't want the bill to be exposed.
Listen, let's make one thing clear. There are people on both sides of the aisle--all of us, everybody in this Chamber believes that all people are entitled to dignity and respect.
We believe that every single person is made in the image of God and, because of that, every single person has inestimable dignity and value. We believe, as our founding document said, that God is the one that endows us with the inalienable rights that we have. They ought to be protected and respected.
But unfortunately, the Democrats' misguided effort here tramples all over many of those fundamental rights that God gives us, the right to life, the right to religious freedom.
While it is true that H.R. 5 does not include the word ``abortion''-- our colleagues keep reminding us of that--it does reference pregnancy and ``related medical conditions'' as areas of protection against discrimination. Everybody knows that this historically has led to the inclusion of abortion. We are opening a door here for the rampant taxpayer funding of abortions on demand; in addition to the myriad number of conscience protections that exist for businesses and medical professionals. You will hear a lot about that today as well.
It is telling that the text of the bill also directly undermines the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Let's remember, RFRA was widely supported on both sides of the aisle and signed into law by President Clinton in 1993. RFRA's lead Democrat sponsor was our colleague, Representative Nadler. It passed the House by unanimous consent and the Senate by a vote of 97-3.
But now, the Equality Act, or the inequality act, explicitly undercuts RFRA by negating its application to the underlying legislation. In other words, those protections won't apply anymore.
This is unprecedented. It is dangerous. It is an attack on our first freedom, the first freedom listed in the Bill of Rights, religious liberty. This is something that our faith communities are deeply concerned about and all of us are as individuals.
Look, I have to save time for my colleagues, and I will just conclude by saying this bill is a severe blow to women's rights, to people of faith, to every parent, every student, every medical professional and so many more. Because we believe in the dignity and value of every person, we have to oppose this dangerous, un-American legislation. I pray that we will.
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