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Democratic leaders including Nancy Pelosi address the media after meeting with Republicans to work out a compromise to end the partial government shutdown. Washington, D.C., January 4 2019Shutterstock.com

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 8, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – As promised during the midterm congressional elections last fall, Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi has announced the impending introduction of sweeping pro-LGBT legislation long awaited by left-wing activists.

“Next week, [we] will be launching our Equality Act to end discrimination for the LGBTQ community and we will be launching our initiative to protect the DREAMers and temporary-protected status persons in our country,” the California Democrat announced Thursday, the pro-homosexual Washington Blade reports. “We said these things during the campaign, and we’re getting it done and we are telling the public about the paths that we are on to get them turned into law to make a difference in the lives of the American people.”

The so-called 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.

It would also force anyone employing 15 or more people to recognize their 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.

Conservatives have long warned that the legislation’s true purpose is not to protect homosexual or gender-confused Americans from tangible harm, but to force other Americans such as photographers, florists, and bakers to participate in same-sex “weddings”; and to force employers and businesses to accommodate cross-dressing, same-sex cohabitation, and sex-change treatments regardless of their own values or policies.

Pro-family advocates also warn 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, as happened in the 2017 case of a kindergarten student in Decatur, Georgia.

Nevertheless, Democrats have tried and failed to push the Equality Act through Congress since the Obama years. The month before Democrats took control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Pelosi’s office called it a “top priority” Democrats would introduce “early in the year” if they won.

“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,” Pelosi said at the time. “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.”

As for the bill’s prospects in the current session, Pelosi would not commit to a specific date for a floor vote, but suggested it will be soon.

“As we go along, it’s the tempo of the floor, but it is a priority for us,” she told the Blade. “I’m very pleased because we have a great deal of outside support for it, which I hope will help us pass it in the Senate. We most certainly will pass it overwhelmingly in the House.” The Equality Act is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Senate or win the support of President Donald Trump.

In the wake of Democrats’ election victory, Pelosi also announced plans for an “independent diversity office” to ensure diversity among Capitol Hill staff, and in January the House voted 234-197 to approve new “non-discrimination” rules that mirrored the Equality Act’s provisions, but applied only to staffers of House lawmakers.