Equality Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for being here today and covering for us.

Madam Speaker, again, we have talked about this: The Democrats in this bill are pushing something quickly. We have talked about this many times and sometimes I just want to talk about this because I feel that, however well-intentioned the bill is, it is not coming under full scrutiny. After considering only four members in the committee and rejecting each of them, including three that simply added rules of construction, the chairman requested the House consider this bill under a closed rule, and his request was granted. Now, we can disagree about policy, but it is hard to argue this bill wouldn't have been improved by full debate about what the bill says in consideration of as many amendments as possible.

Americans can all agree that everyone deserves to be treated with respect. No one should be mistreated by his employers, coworkers, or, frankly, anyone else. However, when lawmakers propose amendments to Federal law, we must avoid doing more harm than good. We also must not pass legislation that could harm children; set back the rights of women they have fought so hard to obtain; and erase the gains made possible by other Federal civil rights laws, such as Title IX. H.R. 5 does all these things. This bill would do much more harm than good in many ways, and the people who would bear it the most would be the women and children who would get the brunt of the damage.

Again, we can have disagreements on what we believe this to be, but without a full vetting on the possibilities, all the nice language today about what it would or would not do and what it is supposed to do gets under the scrutiny of what the law actually says. That is the part that I have the most problem with, not the intent, not the desire, that is something we fight about--and we do--and the goodness, I never question. It is how you go about it.

I made this statement on this floor before, Madam Speaker, what makes you feel good does not often heal you. And today may make us feel good, but in the end probably will not do what we intend it to do. And that is a concern, especially with the way this bill has come to the floor.

I know this has been a consideration. We considered female sports in which, last year, two male athletes won the top two spots in a Connecticut girls class S indoor track meet. One of those female athletes finished eighth and missed an opportunity to compete in front of college coaches by two places. In her words, ``We all know the outcome of the race before it even starts; it's demoralizing.'' Allowing men to compete against women in women's sports isn't demoralizing because female athletes like Selina aren't talented, it is demoralizing because it makes their talent irrelevant.

I don't say this. This is not Doug Collins' opinion. This is also the opinion of tennis great, Martina Navratilova, who explained the threat H.R. 5 poses to women's sports: ``Unless you want to completely remake what women's sports mean, there can be no blanket inclusion rule. There is nothing stereotypical about this--it's about fairness and it's about science.'' And that came after she made initial comments, went back after being criticized for them, reviewed it, looked at everything, and then came back with that statement. She basically, again, doubled down and agreed on what she was saying. And she is one not to back away from those needing equality.

If H.R. 5 becomes law, others will be asking, What did we do at this moment when we had a chance to look at a bill that maybe we could look at and fix or make it better, but we didn't?

Never before in American history has a political party tried so dramatically to rewrite the Federal civil rights laws to include an undefined, self-referential, ideologically driven term called ``gender identity'' in the U.S. Code, applicable to literally any entity that receives Federal assistance, including elementary schools, colleges, and healthcare centers nationwide. H.R. 5 would make self-reporting of gender identity a protected class under Federal law and require doctors and educators to blindly follow the self-reporting of adolescents and young adults. Healthcare protocols and even state law would be no defense, as they would be superseded by this Federal law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. I know this has been debated and characterized from my friends across the aisle as not true, but a plain reading of the text says it is true, and this is something we have to deal with.

We heard proponents of H.R. 5 call people who oppose it as either ignorant, bigoted, oppressive, or hateful. I will not make similar characterizations across the aisle of my friends. I believe we have a genuine disagreement here. That is what this House floor is for, but, unfortunately, it is a closed rule today and has been relatively closed in the process up until this point.

Madam Speaker, I implore my colleagues to listen to the stories of stakeholders everywhere, including the transgender girls and boys this bill is meant to help. We may be hurting them by allowing doctors to prescribe hormones and perform major surgeries on adolescents without parental consent or involvement. In fact, H.R. 5 would actually compel doctors to medicalize children without even consulting their parents. Families of transgender children are begging Congress to listen to them.

But, also, H.R. 5 endangers the First Amendment rights of every single American. Because the bill makes no provision for sincerely-held religious belief, it would criminalize the fundamental tenets of major world religions, including Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Biological sex is a scientific reality, yet H.R. 5 would target faith traditions that acknowledge it as such and want to live their lives accordingly.

Today, we must listen to all Americans, including the LGBTQ community, and recognize many within the community have also raised concerns about this legislation. H.R. 5, in the words of the Women's Liberation Front leader, nullifies ``women and girls as a coherent legal category, worthy of civil rights protection.'' It would endanger millions of American women and undermine fundamental American rights to faith in both religion and science, and actively put children at risk by medicalizing them in harmful and permanent ways without parental involvement.

Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in opposing this bill, which is being rushed to the floor without Members having an opportunity to vote on amendments and I believe carefully considering what is being put before them.

Again, Madam Speaker, think about what we are asking here. For the first time, something was raised in our committee hearing that said: Do you think people would commit fraud by doing all these changes and going through medical procedures and everything, that they would do that just to simply commit fraud? Let me remind you, Madam Speaker, and to anyone listening this morning, this bill does not require any of that. It requires nothing except a self-admonishment or knowledge that I am what I say I am today. That is all this bill requires.

So many of us are just asking: Is there a better way to do this? Is there a better way to look at this? Probably not. But this way, this is not right and is being rushed.

Again, as I started with today, I will sort of end as well, sometimes what makes you feel good--and I understand the majority's desire to bring this forward and to a fulfill a promise, I get it--but, in the end, is it also going to do what you want it to do in the long-run? Or are there going to be unintended consequences that we don't want to acknowledge today in our rush to do something we promised? Sometimes it is better to back up and make sure it is right before we can fulfill a promise.

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What we are concerned about in the bill is where it says any of these groups, affiliations, Catholic affiliations, Jewish affiliations who get Federal money to do other things, they would come under this, and this is where the RFRA protections is something.

So, the conversation here was nice. It provided a great cover, but it did not answer the question that many of us have asked in this process as we go forward. So I get that.

Also, as we look at this further, this is why we have asked to see if we could do this in a different way and do it in a better way to define these terms and to protect all parties in this, and not just run hastily into something that could cause problems in the future.

This colloquy was nice but did not answer the underlying question.

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of debate, and we have heard a lot of issues today.

One of the issues that I want to bring up today is, again, as I started out in my opening statement, no one on our side and no one who disagrees with this bill is saying anyone ought to be treated wrongly or badly in any way. That is not who we are. In fact, we have struggled with that on this floor.

This bill, I can agree with the intent. I agree with the fact that no one should be.

But my friend, the majority leader, just made a statement. He quoted scripture, and it was a good one. It says love your neighbor. And I agree with him. I have talked about it. I have preached on that many years now. But it also didn't say, ``Love your neighbor,'' and then, ``I have to agree with my neighbor.''

We can love each other and disagree. We love each other and disagree, and then we come into this place with this bill. That is where it gets not amorphous, not the intent, not what we want to do to make us feel better. It actually is how we then legislate this.

This bill is just not a good attempt. It is an imperfect step toward making something that others want to be right but, in the end, runs a real risk of causing others harm at the same time.

It is a risk that is brought on by rushing something. Even if it has been talked about for 5 years, the legislative part has been rushed, Mr. Speaker.

I understand the concern. I understand the anxiety. But let's make it right. Let's at least have an open debate. Let's discuss it here.

It is interesting to me that we had to have a colloquy on the floor to assuage some Members that this bill would not attack a worship service or who could lead a worship service or if a minister would actually have to do a service that would be against their personal faith beliefs.

The bill does not talk about that, but it does leave an open issue of public accommodation and how somebody would look at public accommodation in a church setting. That is an honest question that needs to be answered.

It does bring up a lot of questions. What if a church or a religious organization accepts Federal money? What if a Catholic church accepts school lunch programs? What if a Jewish synagogue accepts money for homeland security? At that point, for the programs that they have, the bill says if you receive Federal money, you fall under this. Do they then have to violate their own faith beliefs?

Making one group of people deny their faith while trying to give another one a leg up is still wrong. It is not equal.

The questions that we have here today are honest disagreement. It is honest disagreement, but not in the sense of, if you take this, you have made a gender identity claim that is self-professing.

As was just said a moment ago, we talk about great ideas like the Civil Rights Act and the ADA. Disability under the ADA can be shown objectively, and I agree. As the father of a daughter who has spina bifida and is in a wheelchair, I can show objectively what that actually means. I am proud of that legislation. I was not here. I wish I had been because I have seen it open up.

In this bill, it says simply, ``Gender identity as I proclaim it at that moment.'' This is where our problems come.

Mr. Speaker, that is why I would say vote ``no'' on the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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