Bishop Monnot's Public Comment on House File 2389

Bishop Monnot’s public comment was read by the Rev. Wendy Abrahamson, our diocesan lobbyist, at the Iowa State Capitol during the Public Hearing for House File 2389. This bill has been commonly referred to as the LGBTQ+ Erasure Act and the diocese is declared in opposition to this bill.

I comment as the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa, a faith leader in this state. I oppose this bill in no uncertain terms. This legislation is an unscientific and inhumane attempt to punish transgender, intersex, and gender nonbinary people for wanting to live the lives that God created them to live. Every human being is created in the image of God, and deserves to be treated with the dignity and respect that is due to God's image. This law would create a second class of humanity, and even acknowledges that in the statement on line 16: "Separate accommodations are not inherently unequal," which would be unnecessary to include in the law if it were actually true. History and settled law tells us that there is no such thing as "separate but equal," and it is astonishing that this legislation would attempt to change that. This law also lacks any background in the current scientific understanding of gender, gender identity, and gender expression, which shows us that there's no true binary in biological sex despite the attempt that this law makes to define it that way. As a Christian leader, I urge you to defeat this legislation in the name of the God who created all humanity and loves each individual uniquely, including our transgender, intersex, and nonbinary siblings.