Twenty-two senators just reintroduced the so-called First Amendment Defense Act (FADA). As history has shown, laws like this have nothing to do with protecting religion and everything to do with protecting people who wish to discriminate. Such laws aim to make LGBTQ+ people, especially LGBTQ+ elders, suffer. SAGE, Columbia University Law School, and the Movement Advancement Project recently issued a report, Dignity Denied: Religion Exemptions and LGBTQ+ Elder Services, revealing that 85 percent of nonprofit continuing-care retirement communities are religiously affiliated. Whether they are in long-term care or have a caregiver at home, LGBTQ+ older adults would be put at great risk by FADA, which would permit federally funded aging providers to discriminate against them when they are most in need of care.
