In 2019, Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican senator to cosponsor the Equality Act - legislation that would add sexual orientation and transgender status as protected classes under the 1964 Civil Rights Act - but Collins says she won't cosponsor the legislation in 2021 because of unresolved problems in the bill.
"There were certain provisions of the Equality Act which needed revision," Collins said.
The Supreme Court's Bostock decision in 2020 largely accomplished what advocates of a federal LGBT-rights law wanted, but the Equality Act would go much further than Bostock.
The Equality Act "Goes very far to stamp out religious exemptions."
Laycock, a longtime supporter of gay marriage and proponent of enacting a federal gay-rights law, explained that the Equality Act "Regulates religious non-profits And then it says that does not apply to any claim under the Equality Act. This would be the first time Congress has limited the reach of RFRA. This is not a good-faith attempt to reconcile competing interests. It is an attempt by one side to grab all the disputed territory and to crush the other side."
The second way the Equality Act goes far beyond the Bostock decision is that it adds "Sexual orientation" and "Transgender status" as classes protected under the 1964 Civil Rights Act's Title II, which prohibits discrimination at public accommodations.
The Equality Act also greatly expands the number of businesses that count as "Public accommodations" under the Civil Rights Act.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/susan-collins-wont-cosponsor-equality-act-again/
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