Joe Biden pledged to gut religious freedom protections if he should become president, claiming they give “safe harbor” to “hate.”
Such protections allow faith-based homeless shelters, charities and small business owners to act according to their faiths.
“Donald Trump and Mike Pence have given hate against LGBTQ+ individuals safe harbor and rolled back critical protections for the LGBTQ+ community,” Biden told Philadelphia Gay News.
“By blocking the ability of transgender individuals to openly serve their country, denying LGBTQ+ people access to critical health care, proposing policies allowing federally funded homeless shelters to turn away transgender people and federally funded adoption agencies to reject same-sex couples, and failing to address the epidemic of violence against transgender people — particularly transgender women of color — the Trump-Pence Administration has led a systematic effort to undo the progress President Obama and I made.”
Biden condemns as “’discrimination’ the idea that faith-based homeless shelters, adoption agencies, and other charities would refuse to endorse same-sex marriage, transgender identity, and experimental cross-sex drugs and surgeries,” Tyler O’Neil at PJ Media writes.
“He acted as though any desire to follow a traditional Christian, Jewish, or Muslim view of sexuality and gender must be rank ‘discrimination.’ This falls in line with the radical pro-LGBT Equality Act, which Biden said he would pass in his first 100 days, should Democrats win the Senate and hold onto the House.”
Read O’Neil’s article in its entirety here.
Photo by Gage Skidmore