House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) believes the Equality Act will have “bipartisan support.”
During Thursday’s press conference, Pelosi told reporters, “This is something very exciting for us, Equality Act. We passed it, of course before and hopefully, now it will be passed into law in the Senate.”
“It will have bipartisan support,” Pelosi continued. “The business community is supportive because they want the very best in the workforce.”
She added, “In order for that to happen, we have to remove discrimination in all aspects of our society and our economy.”
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) announced the introduction of the Equality Act on Thursday. It will be introduced in the House on Thursday and in the Senate next week, according to Cicilline’s press release.
The Equality Act seeks to “prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation, and for other purposes.”
Watch her press conference below:
Speaker Pelosi says Equality Act, which would provide anti-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ community, "will have bipartisan support." https://t.co/SsfxBXCUvU pic.twitter.com/VKHXFVSogg
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 18, 2021
In March of 2019, the Equality Act was introduced by Cicilline. It was passed by the House of Representatives in May of 2019.
The Equality Act gained attraction from singer Taylor Swift, who penned an open letter in June of 2019 where she said she “personally [rejects]” then-President Donald Trump’s “stance that his administration, ‘supports equal treatment of all,’ but that the Equality Act, ‘in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights.’”
Swift continued, “No. One cannot take the position that one supports a community, while condemning it in the next breath as going against ‘conscience’ or ‘parental rights.'”
The singer wrote in the post with the letter, “While we have so much to celebrate, we also have a great distance to go before everyone in this country is truly treated equally.”
She also previously started a petition to support the Equality Act which more than 822,000 people have signed on to so far, as of Thursday afternoon.