ORLANDO, Florida — Richard Grenell, ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence in the Trump administration, isn’t a fan of a bill passed by the House that would prohibit discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Grenell was the first openly gay person to serve at a Cabinet-level, though he was in an acting capacity. The problem with the Equality Act, passed by the House Thursday, is that it would confer “special rights” on individual groups, Grenell said.
“We just want to be treated equally. And over the years, we’ve migrated into a group of angry leadership in Washington, demanding special rights. And the attack on the religious community is unacceptable,” Grenell told the Washington Examiner Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida.
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The Equality Act now goes to the Senate, where it stands little chance of passing in the narrowly-divided chamber that is under Democratic control. The proposal previously passed the House in 2019, but the Senate, then in Republican hands, never took action.
The proposal would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill particularly states that it usurps the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act — the law that sets the bar for the government to defend laws if individuals claim their religious freedoms have been violated. The Equality Act would affect businesses, including flower shops and bakeries, which have been the focus of gay and transgender versus religious rights legal fights.
Grenell, a strong Trump loyalist, says he believes the 45th president brought home many gays and lesbians to the idea of smaller government and credits his former boss for expanding the party to more gay and transgender voters.
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“In this last campaign, we literally doubled the support of gays and lesbians for conservative causes. The group Outspoken has done incredible work. They continue to do it. They deserve all of our support. And it’s just a group of young gays and lesbians who are demanding that people think about these issues,” he said.
