‘Instrument of the devil’: Priest sounds alarm on Equality Act 

The popular South Carolina priest described the Equality Act as “the crown achievement” of the progressive movement, a movement “that hates organized religion” and “despises any true opposition.”

Fr. Jeffrey Kirby/YouTube

A Catholic priest recently called the Equality Act an “instrument of the devil” that would make religious organizations “target number one.”

“Our Congress is considering what is called the Equality Act, a massive exercise of irony. They want to push this Equality Act through and are making great efforts to do it quickly so that the American people don’t catch on,” said Fr. Jeffrey Kirby, pastor of Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in South Carolina and a senior contributor at Crux.

The general intent of the bill, which passed the House last month, is to amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to make “sexual orientation and gender identity” protected classes under federal law. Critics, however, argue that the bill would be weaponized to “persecute those who don’t embrace newfangled gender ideology,” according to a report  from The Center Square.

“The bill allows the Department of Justice to intervene in equal protection actions in federal court on account of sexual orientation or gender identity,” a summary of the bill states.

Kirby began his March 2 homily by making two “elementary” points: men and women are “distinct” and their differences are complimentary, both physically and spiritually.

“With this understanding now we see that there are many who are using the term equality to gain social acceptance and legislative power for other issues. They use equality because as Americans and as Christians, we are all pro-equality. I just summarized our teachings. We argue for the dignity of every human life,” said Kirby.

“So they use our language, they use the language of good people, they use the language of our republic in order to hijack, manipulate, and push something else beyond this good word,” he added.

Kirby said arguments for “supposed equality” cannot be accepted “when they are being used to push social engineering, transgenderism, homosexuality and an attack on religion.”

“Such attempts must be named and stopped in their tracks,” he continued. “As such, dear friends, we must speak. We speak the truth in love but we must speak. I’ve said before: who has taken the tongue of the Christian believer and how do we get it back? When is it and at what point do we become so ashamed of the Lord Jesus, who has never been ashamed of us, and when do we become so ashamed of the Gospel that we claim within these four walls to live solely for him but we walk out and we are so quick to compromise and abandon him and his life-giving message?”

The Equality Act would be used to force religious schools, churches, and hospitals “to accept the government’s benefits and mandates about sexual orientation and gender identity,” Kirby said.

“Why are they not teaching transgenderism in our children’s faith formation on Wednesday nights? We will have no protection,” he added. “It will threaten everyday speech where people can be fined or lose their jobs for using the wrong name or even the wrong pronoun. I can be charged with hate speech by preaching the Gospel from this pulpit.”

The popular South Carolina priest described the Equality Act as “the crown achievement” of the progressive movement, a movement “that hates organized religion” and “despises any true opposition.”

“The Equality Act is an instrument of the devil,” he concluded. “It comes straight from hell in order to bind the hands and the mouths of good people who seek to speak the truth.”

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Anthony Gockowski

Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.