U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) this week submitted, without success, key amendments to Democrats’ Equality Act legislation that he said would have protected medical facilities and people of faith.
As written, the Equality Act makes it impossible for organizations to turn away biological males who identify as women from women’s spaces such as restrooms, showers, locker rooms, homeless shelters, and domestic violence shelters.
Green wanted to add amendments that would have broadened protections for women and medical providers in a bill that he said otherwise eliminates conscience protections for Americans of faith.
According to a press release, Green’s first amendment would have ensured that women’s shelters do not lose federal funds for providing services exclusively to women.
Green’s second amendment would have ensured that medical providers do not have to perform sex-reassignment surgeries, abortions, and other procedures that violate their deeply held religious beliefs. As written, the Equality Act forces every medical facility that receives federal funds, including religious institutions, to perform these procedures or lose funding, the press release said.
Green delivered a speech about the bill on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives this week.
“As a physician I know firsthand that this bill, H.R.5 will force medical providers to surrender sound medical judgement in their sincerely-held convictions to politically fashionable dogmas. According to the radical activists who seek to enshrine gender identity into federal civil rights law, the only appropriate treatment for a child struggling with gender dysphoria is gender reassignment. That’s it. Such procedures often lead to irreversible damage, especially in adolescence,” Green said.
“But under the Equality Act, medical providers who object to performing these procedures will face crushing legal liability if they refuse to comply. Every medical facility receiving any federal money will be given an ultimatum — comply or shut down. If H.R.5 becomes law, a doctor who refuses to perform a mastectomy or a hysterectomy on an otherwise healthy teenage girl seeking gender reassignment surgery will be held liable for violating the federal law.”
Green said H.R.5 also exempts itself from long-standing bipartisan federal religious liberty protections — protections that he said Congress and the Supreme Court have consistently upheld.
“A Catholic hospital following the commands of scripture to serve the frail and the poor would be forced to violate their very faith to comply and perform abortions or face financial ruin. As a physician, I took a sacred oath to do no harm and to preserve the health of those in my care. If this bill becomes law, many doctors will be forced to go against both their conscience and their medical judgement,” Green said.
“Make no mistake, This is a death sentence for medicine and for the sacred rights of conscience. Biology is not bigotry, and medicine is not discrimination. All Americans who do not wish to see medicine sacrificed for the politically correct orthodoxy should stand up and oppose this bill.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
In case you have not noticed, DEMOCRATS HATE CHRISTIANS!