HARRISBURG – By a 3-2 vote, the unelected Independent Regulatory Review Commission voted in favor of regulations that define sex, religious creed, and race in the PA Human Relations Act to mean sexual orientation and gender identity. Similar laws in other states have resulted in prosecutions against creative professionals, essentially requiring them to support messages with which they disagree. Additionally, such laws have opened up sex-specific locker rooms, whether used by children, adults or both, to members of the opposite sex. Senior Counsel at the Independence Law Center, Janice Martino-Gottshall says the Commission ignored serious concerns that deserved to be addressed in a more robust, deliberative way through the legislature. Instead of preventing discrimination, these new rules will be used as weapons against our speech rights as well as our religious freedom and bodily privacy rights.
JANICE MARTINO-GOTTSHALL