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Taylor Swift has said she’s got her “fingers crossed” that a major bill for LGBTQ+ rights will pass through the U.S. Senate.
The singer celebrated on Thursday evening (February 25), after the House of Representatives voted 224-206 to pass H.R. 5 and S. 788, which is otherwise known as the Equality Act.
The proposed legislation will create federal protections for LGBTQ Americans against discrimination on the grounds of “sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity,” in a wide selection of areas including housing, employment and access to public accommodations (such as restaurants and bathrooms).
While the bill has passed through the first house, it must now be passed by the Senate in order to become enshrined into law.
YES!!! Fingers crossed and praying that the Senate will see trans and lgbtq rights as basic human rights.
https://t.co/Nb19UGXgY3
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) February 25, 2021
“YES!!! Fingers crossed and praying that the Senate will see trans and lgbtq rights as basic human rights,” Swift tweeted after the news was confirmed.
Swift has been a long-term backer of the proposed legislation and released an open letter which voiced her support in 2019.
Hitting out at then-president Donald Trump, she wrote: “I personally reject the President’s stance that his administration, ‘supports equal treatment of all,’ but that the Equality Act, ‘in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights.’ No.
#lettertomysenator https://t.co/EKYMXZw5U9 pic.twitter.com/Ym0mGeOHgc
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) June 1, 2019
“One cannot take the position that one supports a community, while condemning it in the next breath as going against ‘conscience’ or ‘parental rights,'”.
“That statement implies that there is something morally wrong with being anything other than heterosexual and cisgender, which is an incredibly harmful message to send to a nation full of healthy and loving families with same-sex, nonbinary or transgender parents, sons or daughters.”
The video for 2019’s ‘You Need to Calm Down‘ also saw Swift featuring an end slide that asked her fans to sign the petition.
“Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, Swift recently announced that she is suing Utah’s Evermore Park for playing her music without a license.
The latest twist in the legal saga follows the park suing Swift for trademark infringement over her most recent album, also titled ‘Evermore’.
In a five-star review of ‘Evermore’, NME‘s Hannah Mylrea wrote, “The new album reaps the rewards the stylistic leap of faith that ‘Folklore’ represented, pushing the boundaries of that sonic palette further still.”
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