Anger as Florida lawmaker Greg Steube says transgender people ‘offend’ God

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A Republican congressman sparked anger when he suggested that transgender people are an “offence” to God.

Florida lawmaker Greg Steube made the controversial comment during a debate in the House on the passage of the Equality Act, which would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender equality.

The GOP member told the House he would begin his speech by giving them the “truth” as he read from Deuteronomy 22:5 in the Bible.

“A woman must not wear men’s clothing nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this,” he read.

Then he told the House that the verse was concerned with people determining their sexual identity.

“It’s not clothing or personal style that offends God, but rather the use of one’s appearance to act out or take on a sexual identity different from the one biologically assigned by God at birth,” he claimed.

“When men or women claim to be able to choose their own sexual identity, they’re making a statement that God did not know what he was doing when he created them.”

Mr Steube then said that the Equality Act “goes directly against what is laid out in scripture”.

His stance earned him an angry backlash from Democrats in the House.

“You used God to enslave my foreparents. You used God to segregate me in schools. You used God to put me in the back of he bus. Have you no shame?” said Representative Al Green of Texas.

“What any religious tradition describes as God’s will is no concern of this Congress,” added New York Democrat Jerry Nadler.

Democrat Katherine Clark, of Massachusetts, hit out at any member of Congress who “describe transgender people as something less-than, as underserving, and illegitimate”.