Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma gave an impassioned speech over the weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in Orlando, Florida. The Republican senator was on hand as a speaker during the conversative event, in which he spoke about freedom of religion and how the Biden Equality Act serves as a threat to people's beliefs.
Last Thursday, a divided House of Representatives passed the Equality Act, a bill that codifies 1964 Civil Rights Act to include protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
The new legislation, which was passed with a vote of 224-206, was surprisingly supported by three Republican representatives: Reps. John Katko and Tom Reed of New York, and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Philadelphia, Vox reported. Now, Sen. Lankford, who has been consistently against the Biden Equality Act, is highlighting the threat that the new legislation poses on religious freedom.
According to the Christian Post, Sen. Lankford said during his CPAC speech on Friday that the Biden Equality Act will force people to hide their faith, which he explained "you don't have to take off" any time of the day, including when you leave the church or go to work to fulfill your duties. He also pointed out that "If you don't practice your faith every day, you really don't have a faith, you just have a religious hobby."
The 52 year-old senator, who also served at the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma and the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center in Davis, Oklahoma, criticized the left for passing the Biden Equality Act. He said, "The in-group in our society doesn't get to define who can and cannot have faith, what their faith would look like in public or in private. We don't have to submit to the in-crowd's secular humanism."
While the Biden Equality Act is designed as an anti-discrimination law that adds protections for members of the LGBTQ community, Sen. Lankford warned that under the new legislation, "People of faith cannot say you have faith."
At CPAC, Sen. Lankford warned that such language as seen in the Biden Equality Act is designed to "discriminate against people of faith." Under the Biden Equality Act, citizens will see similar cases as when the Little Sisters of the Poor, a religious institute for women, was forced by California attorney general Xavier Becerra to "choose between shutting down their ministry to elderly poor or to violate their religious beliefs."
Sen. Lankford said that under Becerra, who supports the Biden Equality Act, there was blatant "hostility toward religious people who did not want to fund contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in their employer-sponsored healthcare plans."
CBN News reported that over the weekend, Sen. Lankford reiterated the importance of living one's faith, despite the threats that the Biden Equality Act poses on religious freedom. He took to Twitter to say, "Liberal professors and left-wing politicians can't push faith out of the public view because they don't like it, we have a First Amendment. Your faith is yours, not the governments."
In America we can live our faith.
Liberal professors and left-wing politicians can't push faith out of the public view because they don't like it, we have a First Amendment.
Your faith is yours, not the governments. pic.twitter.com/q8oYoXTHpd
"” Sen. James Lankford (@SenatorLankford) February 26, 2021
