“God created them male and female, and for this reason a man shall leave his mother and father, and take to him a wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (Matt 19: 4-6) Imagine reading aloud, in almost any public forum, those words from Jesus. Or imagine reading the Church’s elaboration of Jesus’ teachings, such as this from Pope Francis: “Today children— children!—are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex.... Could gender, to be a woman or to be a man, be an option and not a fact of nature? This leads to error.” Consider the Equality Act, which passed the House with unanimous Democratic support and is awaiting action in the Senate. The bill would subject to civil and criminal penalties any person or institution guilty of “discrimination ... on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, childbirth....” In other words, the Equality Act will render opposition by Catholics to abortion, same-sex “marriage,” or irreversible sex- reassignment surgery a crime. Faithful Catholic churches, schools, charities, hospitals, doctors, nurses, counselors, and even parents will be in constant legal peril. And the law will deny them the option of pleading religious freedom in their defense.

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