Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are bracing for what is likely to be a contentious hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill over legislation aimed at protecting individuals and organizations who hold traditional views about marriage and sexuality.
The long-awaited hearing, called by Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will examine how the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision has affected people who hold traditional views on marriage and review legislation that would protect those people from facing adverse actions by the government.
The bill being debated, called the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), has 171 co-sponsors, all of them Republican except Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill.
The measure was introduced in both the House and the Senate more than a year ago. Conservatives are eager for Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, to allow the bill to get marked up in committee and then move to the House floor for a full vote.
“It is unacceptable that Chairman Chaffetz and Republican leaders have not prioritized consideration of FADA,” said Michael Needham, chief executive officer of Heritage Action for America, which is urging members to move the bill forward, in a press release. “The bill must be marked up before the Republican House majority leaves for a seven-week recess.”
Liberals, however, have major problems with the legislation, saying it would roll back “critical protections” for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their families, and are lobbying members to vote against it.
Upon learning of the hearing, a group of 70 left-leaning national, state, and local groups sent a letter to Chaffetz urging him to cancel the event. The hearing, “Religious Liberty and H.R. 2808, the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA),” falls on the one-month anniversary of the terrorist attack on an Orlando gay nightclub that resulted in 49 people dead and another 53 injured.
“Congress should be holding hearings on the needs of the victims, their families, and survivors of the Orlando attacks, or on ways to better protect the LGBTQ community from bias-motivated violence or discrimination,” said David Stacy, director of government affairs for the liberal Human Rights Campaign in a statement. “But instead, only a month after the attack, they are unconscionably holding a hearing on harmful legislation that singles out the LGBTQ community.”
Conservatives say that after the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, the religious liberty conflicts have escalated. During questioning for that case, Justice Samuel Alito asked U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who was arguing in support of same-sex marriage, whether a religious school could lose its tax-exempt status for opposing same-sex marriage. In response, Verrilli said, ‘‘It’s certainly going to be an issue.’’
Now, more than a year later, conservatives believe legislation is needed to safeguard those with traditional beliefs about marriage and sexuality from being denied federal grants, losing their tax-exempt status, or being otherwise punished by the federal government.
The First Amendment Defense Act would protect a religious school, for example, from losing its tax-exempt status, and prevent a federal employee from being fired for holding traditional views about marriage.
The Human Rights Campaign voiced concern that housing shelters receiving federal grants could cite FADA as grounds for denying a same-sex couple accommodations, or that an emergency women’s shelter receiving federal grants could deny services to a couple because they’re in a same-sex marriage.
The legislation would not generally apply to private businesses, such as the bakery run by Aaron and Melissa Klein who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. However, it could affect private businesses that are recipients of federal contracts or grants, licenses, or tax benefits, for example, by preventing the government from taking adverse actions against them for holding traditional views about marriage.
Both Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-Idaho, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, will testify on Tuesday morning as witnesses in favor of the legislation, along with The Witherspoon Institute’s Matthew Franck, and Kristen Waggoner, senior counsel and senior vice president at Alliance Defending Freedom.
Alliance Defending Freedom is a Christian conservative nonprofit that represents a number of clients who have faced adverse actions for acting on their beliefs about marriage and sexuality. One of their clients, former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, will testify at the hearing, sharing how he personally stands to benefit from protections the First Amendment Defense Act would provide.
On Jan. 6, 2015, Cochran was fired from his job after self-publishing a men’s devotional book addressing marriage and sexuality from a biblical perspective.
Tuesday, Cochran, an African-American who grew up in poverty, will share his account of race-based discrimination growing up in Shreveport, La., and why he feels the First Amendment Defense Act is necessary to prohibit “government discrimination” for people who hold traditional beliefs about marriage.
Democrat witnesses include Jim Obergefell, the leading plaintiff in the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage case. Joining him is Barney Frank, a former congressman from Massachusetts, and Katherine Franke, director at the Columbia School of Law Center for Gender and Sexuality Law.
