{"id":152,"date":"2019-04-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calchurches.planetpov.com\/impact\/index.php\/2019\/04\/23\/we-are-all-equal\/"},"modified":"2019-04-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T00:00:00","slug":"we-are-all-equal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/churchimpact.org\/index.php\/2019\/04\/23\/we-are-all-equal\/","title":{"rendered":"WE ARE ALL EQUAL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"imgPusher\" style=\"float:right;height:134px\"><\/span><span style=\"display: table;width:auto;position:relative;float:right;max-width:100%;;clear:right;margin-top:20px;*margin-top:40px\"><a><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.churchimpact.org\/\/uploads\/4\/1\/4\/8\/41486323\/published\/allequal.jpg?w=1160\" style=\"margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; border-width:1px;padding:3px; max-width:100%\" alt=\"Picture\" class=\"galleryImageBorder wsite-image\"><\/a><span style=\"display: table-caption; caption-side: bottom; font-size: 90%; margin-top: -10px; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: center;\" class=\"wsite-caption\"><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n<div class=\"paragraph\" style=\"display:block;\"><span style=\"font-weight:600\"><a href=\"http:\/\/fpl.actionkit.com\/sign\/equality-act-congress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><font size=\"4\">Join Faith Leaders In\u00a0Demanding Congress Support the Equality Act<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:rgb(51, 51, 51)\">As people of faith, we urge Congress to support the Equality Act. Our faith traditions teach us that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, straight, cisgender, and queer people are all created with sacred dignity and worth. We are taught to respect and love others as ourselves in our words, deeds, and laws. Now is the time to update our federal laws to respect and uphold the sacred dignity and worth of all people. In doing so, we will live up to our nation\u2019s values of freedom, equality, and opportunity for all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:rgb(51, 51, 51)\">In our country today, LGBTQ people\u2014our neighbors, family, friends, and fellow congregants, and for some signatories, we ourselves\u2014 are at risk of being fired from a job, refused a place to live, refused service in a place of business, told to leave a bathroom, or refused critical medical care because of who they are or who they love. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or, gender identity is unjust and immoral. We call on Congress to remedy this injustice by passing the Equality Act. This legislation ensures equal protection for all people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.<\/span><br \/>\u200b<a href=\"http:\/\/fpl.actionkit.com\/sign\/equality-act-congress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fpl.actionkit.com\/sign\/equality-act-congress<\/a><br \/><span style=\"color:rgb(51, 51, 51)\">As people of faith, we believe it is possible to both protect LGBTQ people from unjust discrimination and uphold the freedom of religion. That freedom is one of our nation\u2019s most fundamental values, which is why it is protected in the Constitution and remains protected under the Equality Act. As people of faith, we rely on this freedom every day to hold the beliefs we choose and to practice our faiths free from discrimination. It does not give us the right to harm or discriminate against others or impose our religious beliefs on others. We value the freedom of religion and the freedom from discrimination, and we urge Congress to protect both by passing the Equality Act.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:rgb(51, 51, 51)\">We believe equality is a right. Our nation\u2019s laws must uphold our values of loving and caring for our LGBTQ neighbors as ourselves. As people of faith, we have an obligation to be part of healing the world. We will not cease in pursuing our commitment to these values until Congress has passed legislation protecting all people from discrimination and fully funds enforcement of these protections. We lament the ways in which religion has been used throughout our nation\u2019s history to justify discrimination, including on the basis of race. We refuse to be complicit in attempts to use religion to marginalize LGBTQ communities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:rgb(51, 51, 51)\">We call on Congress to pass the Equality Act today.<\/p>\n<p><font size=\"4\">Click here to\u00a0<\/font><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/fpl.actionkit.com\/sign\/equality-act-congress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><font size=\"4\">Join Faith Leaders In\u00a0Demanding Congress Support the Equality Act<\/font><\/a><\/div>\n<hr style=\"width:100%;clear:both;visibility:hidden;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Join Faith Leaders In\u00a0Demanding Congress Support the Equality Act As people of faith, we urge Congress to support the Equality Act. Our faith traditions teach &hellip; <span class=\"read-more-link\"><a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/churchimpact.org\/index.php\/2019\/04\/23\/we-are-all-equal\/\">Read More &rsaquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/churchimpact.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/churchimpact.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/churchimpact.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/churchimpact.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/churchimpact.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/churchimpact.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/churchimpact.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/churchimpact.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/churchimpact.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}