It’s not often that a presidential candidate openly attacks and campaigns against one of America’s founding freedoms, but that’s exactly what Joe Biden is doing. One of the most disturbing items listed on Biden’s platform is his pledge to pass the Equal Rights Amendment within his first 100 days. The Equal Rights Amendment codifies sexual “identity” as a human right and as such provides special protected classification to prevent “discrimination.” In short, the Equal Rights Amendment is a direct assault on the First Amendment’s protections of religious liberty and freedom of speech.

Last Wednesday, Biden reiterated his promise as he decried faith-based organizations that hold to orthodox Christian beliefs regarding human sexuality. Using the disingenuous and false bigotry trope, Biden said, “It’s wrong to deny people access to services or housing because of who they are or who they love.”

Biden then accused President Donald Trump of having “deliberately tried to gut protections for the LGBTQ+ community by creating broad religious exemptions to existing nondiscrimination laws and policies that allow businesses, medical providers, and adoption agencies to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people.” He then insisted, “We need to root out discrimination in our laws, institutions, and public spaces. Religion should not be used as a license to discriminate, and as president I will oppose legislation to deny LGBTQ+ equal treatment in public places. I will immediately reverse discriminatory practices that Trump put in place and work to advance the rights of LGBTQ+ people widely.”

As usual, Biden’s rendition of Trump’s actions is more fiction than fact. Specifically regarding the military, Trump sided with science in his order stipulating that soldier admission be based on biological sex and not gender identity. This was in no way a “ban” against “transgenderism” — it was acknowledgement of the truth of biological reality. Just because some people may claim and believe in their minds that they’re a unicorn does not make them one.

The word “discrimination” is a term leftists love to manipulate to rubber-stamp their own discrimination. They use “discrimination” as a shield against any who would dare object to their social agenda, specifically when it comes to sexuality. But to oppose religious liberty is in fact being discriminatory by definition.

Furthermore, Biden is not merely pledging to support equal public access (protections that already exist) for those who identify as homosexual; he’s demanding that all Americans be forced to accept and embrace the homosexual lifestyle as an immutable identity and state of being that trumps all religious beliefs. He’s demanding that Americans’ religious convictions and consciences bow before the alter of sexual preference.

Biden is promising to do to all Americans what Colorado, California, and Washington have done to Christian bakers, wedding photographers, and florists — discriminate against their religious liberty. In short, Biden has no tolerance for those whose religious convictions don’t align with his political and social worldview.

Make no mistake, a vote for Biden is a vote against religious liberty and freedom of speech. It’s a vote against tolerance. It’s a vote against the core ideal of religious liberty upon which America was built. A vote for Biden is a vote against America.