Chris Stewart is a lot of things: a member of Congress, a family man, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a supporter of President Trump — and now, a gay rights pioneer.
Sitting across from me in his office on Capitol Hill, the Republican congressman explained that he never imagined when the people of Utah’s 2nd Congressional District first elected him to the House of Representatives in 2012 that he would end up introducing legislation expanding LGBT rights.
“It wasn’t really wasn’t on the radar socially as much as it is now,” he recalled, “Obergefell hadn’t been decided … [and] we just didn’t see the same threat to religious liberty five or six years ago.”
“But we really are honored to be doing this,” the congressman continued, “It’s the right thing to do.”
Stewart was referring to the piece of legislation we’d met to discuss: The Fairness for All Act he recently introduced. The bill adds gay and transgender people as protected groups to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but unlike the Democrats’ preferred Equality Act, it contains key carve-outs and reasonable exceptions meant to protect religious liberty for faith-based businesses and religious Americans.
“It’s a bit of threading the needle,” Stewart explained to me. Coming from a deeply religious state of Utah and a family rooted in the LDS church, he understands full well the need to protect the First Amendment rights of religious people to live out their faith. But I was interested in hearing about how the congressman came to support added legal protections for gay and transgender people.
Understanding his journey requires stepping back in time.
Stewart was a major in the U.S. Air Force during the era of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” the policy that barred gay people from serving openly in the military. I asked him if he’d ever served alongside any gay people, at least, to the best of his knowledge.
“It just wasn’t an issue for me,” he replied almost instantly. “You just want the guy to do his job or the girl to do her job. I had a pretty close friend who was gay and we all knew … but it was kind of like, you know, we have, we just don’t have to discuss it.”
“Look, there wasn’t the public acceptance of this at all when I was growing up. If you were gay, your life was very difficult. For every gay person I knew, life was much harder for them. There has been a lot of change over time, and that’s a good thing. You just shouldn’t have to fear … ‘is my job in danger, am I going to be able to get housing, can I serve on a jury.’”
The congressman is trying to solve those worries, he told me, and he said that as far as he’s concerned, anti-discrimination laws are “a beautiful thing.”
I wanted to know how Stewart reconciled his personal, religious views about sexual morality with support for legal protections. After all, conservative critics of the Fairness for All Act often object in part on the grounds that they don’t want a definition of sexuality and gender they disagree with enshrined into law.
“It’s really kind of the heart of this,” he replied. “These are the things I believe, but I have to understand that not everyone does. I think there’s a bit of ‘live and live’ about it … what I believe I hope you’ll respect, but I shouldn’t compel you to accept what I believe. And I don’t think you should go the other way around either.”
This is, essentially, the balance Stewart’s bill would strike.
It would set up a legal framework where a secular corporation such as McDonald’s couldn’t fire someone for being gay, but a Christian school wouldn’t be forced to employ gay teachers who openly flout biblical teachings on homosexuality, either. Across a variety of issues such as adoption services and conscience rules for medical professionals, it strikes a similar compromise to allow gay and transgender people to receive equal service and care but also allow religious providers to operate in accordance with their faith.
A tone of frustration crept into Stewart’s voice when we started discussing the way we currently approach such conflicts, and it quickly became clear that, in large part, the goal of his legislation is to help resolve the never-ending, ultra-divisive conflict that’s plaguing our discourse on these issues.
Stewart asked, “Does it help to reconcile some of the conflict in our society?”
For him, this was of key concern, “Because we can litigate this until my grandchildren are in litigating it. We can litigate a thousand times. We can go through all of the costs. We can go through all the uncertainty because this court might find this way and this court might find another.”
The congressman continued, “And we can have everyone wonder too, well, where am I? Where is the line? Where am I protected? Where am I in the wrong? Or we can definitively answer some of those questions. One of the really great outcomes in Utah [where similar legislation has passed] has been that litigation over these issues has almost entirely disappeared because people understand the rules, and it’s made it so there’s not this continual conflict.”
As far as his bills’ political future is concerned, Stewart isn’t naive. “The chances of getting Mrs. Pelosi to support this are pretty low, and we know that.”
But that’s not the point, he tells me. “It’s the right thing to do. If we wait for the perfect opportunity, who knows if and when that’ll ever come — so let’s just lay down the marker. It’s me, one on one with members of Congress, convincing them.” Still, while Stewart doesn’t necessarily think it’ll happen this session of Congress, he is indeed bullish about his bill’s prospects in the future.
“The 2020 election is going to change things. It’s going to open doors. Let’s say that President Trump wins … I can’t imagine the president opposing this,” Stewart exclaimed. “Look at his background, look at the work he’s done and his life in New York. I don’t think he’s going to oppose us on this.”
Here’s hoping the congressman is right.
