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Nancy Pelosi

October 19, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi desperately hopes Democrats will retake control of Congress next month, and dropped multiple hints this week to the delight of liberals and alarm of conservatives about what they'll do if that happens.

“We owe the American people to be there for them, for their financial security, respecting the dignity and worth of every person in our country,” the former House Speaker said Sunday during an event hosted by 92nd Street Y. “And if there is some collateral damage for some others who do not share our view, well, so be it, but it shouldn't be our original purpose.”

The comment came during a conversation about climate change, jobs, and prosperity with left-wing New York Times economist Paul Krugman. As for her qualifier that damaging Americans who disagree “shouldn’t be our original purpose,” Front Page Magazine’s Daniel Greenfield wrote that she was simply fitting “plausible deniability and collateral damage in one sentence.”

Pelosi didn’t define “collateral damage,” but several conservative observers have taken it as an admission that left-wing policies billed as benefiting a certain group often come at the expense of other Americans’ money or freedoms – concerns magnified by additional comments she made Tuesday at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

“It isn’t in our ‘For The People’ agenda because it doesn’t get that specific, but there’s one more because it’s personal for me that I really want to do, and it’s called the Equality Act,” the Democrat leader said, according to the Washington Blade. “The Equality Act expands ending discrimination against LGBTQ people and women and adding that to the Civil Rights Act.”

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill later confirmed that his boss considers the bill a “top priority,” which would be introduced “early in the year” if Democrats retake the House of Representatives.

The “Equality Act” would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include “sex,” “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity” among expressly-recognized “non-discrimination” categories in “public accommodations,” which would also be expanded to include many additional types of establishments including recreation, shopping, online retailers, healthcare services, and more.

The bill would also force anyone employing 15 or more employees to recognize individuals’ claimed “gender identity,” forbid employers from “discriminating” based on “sexual orientation” or “gender identity,” and mandate transgender “access” to opposite-sex restrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms.

Democrats have tried to push the so-called Equality Act since the Obama administration, though it failed to reach the former president’s desk. Conservatives argue its real purpose isn’t merely to protect homosexuals from actual mistreatment, but to force religious Americans such as venue hosts, photographers, florists, calligraphers, and bakers to participate in same-sex “weddings.”

Pro-family advocates also raise concern that letting biological males into female bathrooms not only intrudes on the privacy of actual women and girls, but puts them at risk of assault.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer didn’t answer the Blade’s inquiries as to whether he would similarly prioritize the legislation if Democrats retake the Senate.