CEA President Shannon Royce said "employers and entrepreneurs, like many Americans, are growing increasingly concerned by rising costs that can be blamed in part on oppressive government mandates."
"These gender transition mandates greatly exacerbate this problem by threatening religious employers with punishing fines, burdensome litigation costs, the loss of federal funds, and even criminal penalties," Royce said. "Additionally, the mandate creates a unique quagmire of concerns for religious healthcare providers by forcing them to speak positively about gender transition procedures even if they disagree with them."
In May 2021, the Biden administration prohibited discrimination against transgender people in healthcare.
Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Matt Bowman said Biden has "far overreached his constitutional authority" by improperly enforcing federal law "to the detriment of people of faith across the country."
"The government cannot force Christian employers to pay for, or physically perform, harmful medical procedures that contradict their religious beliefs," Bowman said in a statement.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga. in 2020, said sex discrimination protections in the workplace include transgender people. Some Christian conservatives are concerned that the decision has impacted religious freedoms and affected faith-based employment.
Archbishop Jose Horacio Gomez, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said at the time that the Supreme Court had effectively redefined the legal meaning of "sex."
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