US House passes legislation protecting LGBT rights

Only 22 states against discrimination

* House of Representatives passed landmark Bill

* Only 22 states prohibit discrimination against LGBT

* Equality Act needs 60 out of 100 votes to pass in the Senate

964 Civil Rights Act amended

By a vote of 224 to 206, the House passed the landmark Equality Act, which amends the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in addition to race, religion, sex and national origin. The vote closely followed party lines, with only three Republican lawmakers supporting the Bill.

“Without the Equality Act, this nation will never live up to its principles of freedom and equality,” Democratic Representative Marie Newman of Illinois, who has a trans daughter, said on the House floor.

NEW YORK, February 25

(Thomson Reuters Foundation) – LGBT Americans moved a step closer to winning legal protection from discrimination on Thursday as the US House of Representatives passed a key civil rights Bill backed by President Joe Biden.

By a vote of 224 to 206, the House passed the landmark Equality Act, which amends the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in addition to race, religion, sex and national origin. The vote closely followed party lines, with only three Republican lawmakers supporting the Bill.

“Without the Equality Act, this nation will never live up to its principles of freedom and equality,” Democratic Representative Marie Newman of Illinois, who has a trans daughter, said on the House floor. “I’m voting yes on the Equality Act for Evie Newman, my daughter and the strongest, bravest person I know.” Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people often encounter prejudice in housing, credit, jury service and public spaces as only 22 states and the District of Columbia prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

State legislatures regularly advance laws that limit local LGBT protections. Since the start of the year, a dozen states have introduced or passed laws to bar trans girls from participating in girls’ sports leagues.

For the Equality Act to become law, it must win 60 votes in the US Senate, where there is a 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans.

Several Republicans have expressed their opposition, including Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a former presidential candidate, who said he would oppose the Bill unless it added a provision giving “strong religious liberty protections”. Matt Sharp, senior counsel for the Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom – which won a Supreme Court victory in 2018 for a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple – echoed Romney’s concerns. “It’s giving the government the authority to compel people to affirm things, to celebrate things, to create speech and expression that violates their deepest convictions,” Sharp told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, referring to the Bill.Reuters