Recently, Bishop Dennis Sullivan wrote to United States Senator Cory Booker, one of the authors of a Senate version of the Equality Act, to encourage him to reconsider the legislation. A House of Representatives version of the Equality Act (H.R. 5) passed in February 2021.
In his letter (see below), Bishop Sullivan noted that the Equality Act, as currently written, would significantly infringe on one of the founding principles of the United States: “religious diversity is and has been one of the great contributors to the wonderfully diverse fabric of our Nation. Of course, that diversity becomes meaningless unless it is respected. It is that fact enshrined in the First Amendment which prompts me to write to you concerning the Equality Act that you helped to author. Your reputation for inclusiveness and fairness is well-known, and it is my hope and prayer that you will consider that your proposed legislation will have an adverse effect on people of faith in our country.”
Bishop Sullivan is one of many religious leaders across the country who has called upon legislative officials to reconsider the religious and human ramifications of the Equality Act.
In a column published in The Public Discourse titled “Stand Against Unjust Discrimination: Oppose the Equality Act,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York writes, “The Equality Act […] while the name sounds appealing — who is not in favor of equality? — the Equality Act is actually deeply intolerant. It forces a highly contested understanding of human nature on all people, and it goes out of its way to target people of faith.
“A Christian understanding of sex and gender is not about following arbitrary rules. It is about human flourishing, the common good, and respecting the integrity of nature. The Church has long understood that the human person is a unity of body and soul. I am not a mind that happens to have a body. I am a body animated by a soul, a whole person. One’s identity is inseparable from one’s body. Gender ideology presents a counter anthropology, claiming that one’s given body could somehow contradict one’s identity.
“Much of the language of Scripture and sacred tradition builds on the natural understanding of marriage as a fruitful union between male and female. Christianity becomes incomprehensible if we accept that marriage is based merely on strong affection or that gender can be untethered from biological sex. While Catholics must accompany all individuals, we cannot accept an ideology of gender, which, as Pope Francis says, ‘denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family.’ In fact, the Holy Father seems to be speaking directly to the problem represented by the Equality Act when he says, ‘This ideology leads to educational programmes and legislative enactments that promote a personal identity and emotional intimacy radically separated from the biological difference between male and female. Consequently, human identity becomes the choice of the individual, one which can also change over time.’”
Noting a more insidious concern related to The Equality Act, in America Magazine, Erika Bachiochi, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, penned a column titled “The Equality Act’s implications for abortion would be devastating for pregnant women in the workplace,” which notes, “[Few] are aware of the sly way in which the Equality Act’s sponsors seem to be trying to retool the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, transforming it from a law that is explicitly neutral as to abortion into a mechanism that may well be construed to require health care providers to perform abortions and states to fund them.
“The original P.D.A., which was passed as an amendment to the Civil Rights Act in 1978, prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth or ‘related medical conditions.’ Since the 1980s, the final clause has been understood to include abortion: An employee cannot be dismissed for obtaining one. But the text of the P.D.A. itself ensures that it not be interpreted to require employers to fund abortions, nor to prohibit them from doing so.
“But requiring abortion to be funded by states and covered by insurers as ‘health care’ would only further incentivize employers to prefer abortion for their pregnant employees over far more costly accommodations for parenting. Correcting this unyielding logic of the market was the whole purpose of the original P.D.A. Indeed, even with the P.D.A. in place, pregnancy discrimination is still rampant in the United States, and many women feel they need to hide their pregnancies at work.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been at the forefront of voicing the concerns of people of faith and natural law since a version of the Equality Act was first introduced in 2019. Most recently, when the House of Representatives introduced its version of the Equality Act this year, five committee chairmen of the USCCB wrote a letter to members of Congress opposing it. In their letter, they too noted, “the threats posed by the proposed legislation to both people of faith and of no faith, with respect to mandates impacting charities and their beneficiaries in need, health care and other conscience rights, taxpayer funding of abortion, freedom of speech, women’s sports and sex-specific facilities, and more.”
“Each year the Catholic Church, as the largest non-governmental provider of human services in the United States, helps millions of people in need through its parishes, schools, hospitals, shelters, legal clinics, food banks, and other charities. The same core beliefs about the human person — made with inherent dignity and in the image of God — motivate both our positions on life, marriage, and sexuality, and also our call to serve the most vulnerable and the common good.”
In an effort to help Catholics fully understand these issues and to voice their personal concerns, the USCCB has created a special webpage related specifically to the Equality Act, including information on how to contact their elected officials regarding it, go to: www.usccb.org/equality-act to learn more.
Following is a letter Bishop Dennis Sullivan wrote to New Jersey Senator Cory Booker regarding the Equality Act.
Dear Senator Booker:
I know that I need not tell you that human dignity is central to what we Catholics believe: simply put, every person is made in the image of God and should be treated accordingly with respect, dignity and compassion. This means we need to honor the right of every person to be free of unjust discrimination or harassment which is reflected in the Diocese of Camden’s commitment to charitable service to all people, without regard to race, religion, or any other trait or feature.
I also do not have to tell you that religious diversity is and has been one of the great contributors to the wonderfully diverse fabric of our Nation. Of course, that diversity becomes meaningless unless it is respected. It is that fact enshrined in the First Amendment which prompts me to write to you concerning the Equality Act that you helped to author. Your reputation for inclusiveness and fairness is well-known, and it is my hope and prayer that you will consider that your proposed legislation will have an adverse effect on people of faith in our country.
Rather than affirm human dignity in ways that exceed existing practical protection, the Equality Act would discriminate against people of faith. It would also inflict numerous legal and social harms on Americans of any faith or none. If passed, this legislation would:
— Punish the thousands of beneficiaries of faith-based charities such as shelters and foster care agencies, because of the beliefs of some of the sponsors of faith based charities, such as the Catholic Church, on marriage and sexuality;
— Risk mandating all taxpayers to pay for abortions, and health care workers with conscience objections to perform them; ultimately ending more human lives;
— Require girls and women to compete against boys and men for limited opportunities in school sports;
— Discriminate against individuals and religious organizations based on their different beliefs by dismantling, if only in part, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
I am concerned that the proposed Equality Act, while seeking to protect the rights of one group of people, does so by effectively diminishing, and sometimes dismissing outright, the concerns of conscience of other groups of people. I am saddened by the fact that this proposed legislation does not promote human dignity and equality as much as it divides our country and codifies discrimination against religious communities, and others, with different beliefs on human sexuality and marriage.
I ask you to consider steps that can be taken so that this proposed legislation does not, admittedly unintentionally, further generate the divisiveness that undermines us as a people and a Nation.
Thank you for your consideration, and be assured of a remembrance in my prayers of your important work.
Sincerely,
Most Reverend Dennis J. Sullivan, D.D.
Bishop of Camden
at the bottom and then tap “Add to Home Screen”
