It’s vital to understand just how unconstitutional the Equality Act is. The freedom to practice one’s religion is not just an optional, take-it-or-leave-it right. Before he drafted the First Amendment with the “free exercise of religion” as the first individual right, James Madison argued to the Virginia Legislature that religious exercise “is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of civil society.”

It’s vital to understand just how unconstitutional the Equality Act is.

The Equality Act has said that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act “shall not provide … a basis for challenging the application of” any Equality Act provision.

This would be the first time that Congress not only provided inadequate protection for religious freedom, but deliberately and publicly repudiated it altogether.

To say that the Equality Act, which the U.S. Senate will soon take up after its passage in the House, has changed over the years is a huge understatement.

The first version of this legislation, introduced in 1994, prohibited discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation, but did not apply to religious organizations.

Today, however, the Equality Act would prohibit discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity across multiple sectors of American life, including employment and housing, public education and financing—even the credit markets and jury service.

Worse, it now prohibits anyone from even arguing that its enforcement interferes with the fundamental right to practice religion.

It’s vital to understand just how unconstitutional the Equality Act is.

The freedom to practice one’s religion is not just an optional, take-it-or-leave-it right. Before he drafted the First Amendment with the “free exercise of religion” as the first individual right, James Madison argued to the Virginia Legislature that religious exercise “is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of civil society.”

In other words, it is both fundamental and primary.

One way to see the importance of something is to note the measures taken to protect it. The Supreme Court, for example, repeatedly recognized the importance of religious freedom by holding that government burdens on the exercise of religion must be the “least restrictive means” of achieving a “compelling” purpose.

That is the toughest standard in American law.

The other two branches of government have also said that religious freedom is a fundamental right. For decades, presidents have said so in their Religious Freedom Day proclamations.

President Barack Obama, for example, called religious freedom a “universal human right” and an “essential part of human dignity.” America, he said, “proudly stands with people of every nation who seek to think, believe, and practice their faiths as they choose.”

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