The Biden administration has incensed its LGBTQ supporters with its willingness to tolerate existing exemption protections contained within the language of Title IX – during Pride Month, no less. Woke progressives flocked to Twitter to express outrage at recent reports regarding the Department of Justices’ plan to “adequately” defend these exemptions in the class-action federal lawsuit Hunter v. the U.S. Department of Education.
Past presidents have directed their Departments of Justice to abstain from supporting the government in federal lawsuits. Obama had instructed his Justice Department to stop holding up the Defense of Marriage Act in court, demonstrating his opposition to the federal same-sex marriage ban long before Obergefell v. Hodges was decided. Even Trump’s DOJ refrained from defending the federal government in lawsuits directed towards the Affordable Care Act. Despite many outlets playing defense for President Biden, a sizeable amount of prominent gay rights activists assembled on social media to express their outrage at the perceived betrayal.
Hunter v. the U.S. Department of Education includes multiple allegations of discrimination against current and former LGBTQ students on Christian campuses across the nation. The litigants claim that they faced unjust punishments and consequences for their sexual orientations at 25 schools across the country. The lawsuit argues that religious exemptions for discriminatory policies at these schools were unconstitutional since they received funding from the federal government. Rather than decline to defend existing religious exemptions granted by Title IX, Biden’s Justice Department has committed itself to provide an “adequate” defense for the exemption. This unexpected turn of events signals yet another repudiation of a significant voter bloc in the Democratic Party. More nuanced interpretations of the DOJ’s commitment to defending religious exemptions have pointed at attempts by the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) to insert itself as a defendant in the case.
The outrage being directed towards the Biden administration seems to be coming from frustration among voters who have accused the president and his party of bowing to the whims of Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kristin Sinema (D-AZ). The two senators have stood firmly in the way of Democrat efforts to abolish the filibuster, unilaterally pass an infrastructure bill, enact sweeping federal election laws, and severely weaken religious freedom through the proposed Equality Act. Having both the executive and legislative branches at an impasse in their attempts to expand LGBTQ rights has frustrated progressives enough to begin accusing the president of being a traitor to their movement.
Legislative momentum for the Equality Act has begun to grind to a halt amid this Democrat disunity in Congress. During his campaign, Biden vowed to pass this bill purportedly designed to protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination. Critics have instead pointed out that the Equality Act would raze the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), overriding the contents of the RFRA and preventing millions of Americans from using religious exemption as a defense against alleged discriminatory actions. Fervent detractors of the proposed bill have argued that the owners of private businesses would be barred from practicing their religious beliefs. It would allegedly leave them more vulnerable to lawsuits over things like their refusal to bake wedding cakes for gay couples because of their Christian views. Religious protections are clearly under threat, but current events show that any immediate widespread alteration remains unlikely – for now.
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