Norton Blasts Republicans for Rewriting Anti-LGBT Bill to Specifically Target D.C. LGBT Community, Hearing Tuesday

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today said that House and Senate Republicans, in their latest attack on LGBT people in the District of Columbia, “have rewritten an anti-LGBT bill, the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), to specifically target D.C.'s LGBT community, an abuse of congressional authority over the District and an official attempt to deepen discrimination against LGBT Americans here and throughout the country.” The original version of FADA (S.1598/H.R. 2802), sponsored by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Representative Raúl Labrador (R-ID), prohibited the federal government from denying federal benefits, contracts and the like to individuals, non-profits and for-profits that discriminate against LGBT people, as well as individuals who engage in extramarital relations, based on a sincerely-held religious belief or moral conviction. The latest version, which the sponsors have publicly released but not yet introduced, applies to both the federal and District governments, but not state governments, and reaches the District government by proclaiming it to be part of the federal government. The bill is scheduled for a hearing at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (OGR) tomorrow, Tuesday, July 12, 2016, at 10:00 a.m. in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building.

Norton noted this is not Republicans’ first attack on LGBT people in the District this Congress. Last year, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Representative Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) introduced disapproval resolutions to overturn the Human Rights Amendment Act (HRAA), a D.C. anti-discrimination law that repealed a congressionally-imposed rider that permitted schools in D.C. to deny LGBT students equal access to school facilities and services. This year, Representative Gary Palmer (R-AL) filed an amendment to the fiscal year 2017 D.C. appropriations bill to block HRAA and another D.C. anti-discrimination law, the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act (RHNDA). After Norton called out Palmer for introducing his discriminatory amendment just one week after the June 12 terrorist attack in Orlando, FL targeting LGBT Americans at a gay nightclub, Palmer modified his amendment to block only RHNDA. Norton also noted this is not Senator Lee’s first attack on D.C. home rule—Lee has twice introduced a bill that would ban all abortions in D.C. after 20 weeks, with very limited exceptions.

“Republicans are once again shamefully trying to eliminate non-discrimination laws in the name of religious liberty,” Norton said. “With this newest version of an anti-LGBT bill, Republicans simply could not resist adding insult to injury by specifically targeting D.C.’s LGBT community in particular. This bill is constitutionally defective in its targeting of the LGBT community. It is shocking that Republicans would launch what will be taken as their response to the mass shooting of LGBT Americans in Orlando with an attack on that same community on the shooting’s one-month anniversary.”