The push for LGBTQ civil rights stalls in the Senate as advocates search for Republican support

The long march toward equal rights for gay, lesbian and transgender Americans — whose advocates have eyed major advances with complete Democratic control in Washington — has run into a wall of opposition in the Senate.

Foundering alongside other liberal priorities such as voting rights, gun control and police reform, legislation that would write protections for LGBTQ Americans into the nation’s foundational civil rights law has stalled because of sharpening Republican rhetoric, one key Democrat’s insistence on bipartisanship and the Senate’s 60-vote supermajority rule.

While Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) hinted at potential action this month — the annual LGBTQ Pride Month — Senate aides and advocates say there are no immediate plans to vote on the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the protected classes of the 1964 Civil Rights Act alongside race, color, religion and national origin.

The House passed the legislation in February, 224 to 206, with only three Republicans joining all 221 Democrats in support. The Senate companion bill is sponsored by 49 Democrats and no Republicans. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) is the Democratic holdout, and the lone Republican who had sponsored a previous version of the bill, Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), is not yet doing so in this Congress.

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