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Religious liberty is one of the defining principles of our founding and our history. We are incredibly fortunate that for nearly two and half centuries, our tradition of religious freedom – guaranteed to us under the First Amendment – has accommodated people of many different faiths and deeply held beliefs.

So even though the Supreme Court ruled that the states must legally change the definition of marriage to include same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, Americans are still constitutionally allowed to disagree with this definition on the basis of their religion or personal beliefs.

As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his Obergefell v. Hodges opinion, “The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths… In turn, those who believe allowing same-sex marriage is proper or indeed essential, whether as a matter of religious conviction or secular belief, may engage those who disagree with their view in an open and searching debate.”

But this week, the Senate was close to confirming a nominee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission who threatens to deny this principle. Chai Feldblum, who was first nominated to the EEOC by President Obama in 2009, was re-nominated to the commission’s five-member board by President Trump last December. And unfortunately, Feldblum has had a history of pushing a political agenda on marriage at the expense of religious freedom.

Feldblum has written that she sees the conflict between religious belief and LGBT liberty as “a zero-sum game” where “a gain for one side necessarily entails a corresponding loss for the other side.” And there is no mystery about which side she thinks should win. In a separate speech she said, “There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win… I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

These are not the words of an open-minded jurist. Rather, they are the words of an activist intent on stamping out all opposition to her cause. In fact, she has even gone so far as to say that “granting liberty to gay people… cannot be adequately advanced if pockets of resistance are permitted to flourish.”

As an EEOC commissioner, Feldblum would be in a prime position to stamp out those pockets of resistance. As she herself told the Washington Blade in 2015, “The EEOC has jurisdiction only over employment. But other federal agencies that enforce sex discrimination provisions often look to our interpretation for guidance in interpreting the laws they enforce.”

And that is why I objected to and blocked her re-confirmation on the Senate floor this week: the federal government should never be used as a tool to stamp out religious liberty. While Obergefell v. Hodges changed the legal definition of marriage – which Americans are free to agree with if they choose – the First Amendment also unequivocally protects an individual’s right to believe in traditional marriage.

We are blessed enough to live in a country that has historically valued religious freedom and understood its importance to human happiness and social flourishing. It is of the utmost importance that we confirm nominees to our government who will continue to uphold and protect this freedom.

This Wednesday, a group of legislators tried to sneak legislation expanding the federal government’s control of Utah past the United States Senate. The 680-page bill was not made public until 10 am Wednesday morning, and less than 12 hours later, these legislators were trying to force final passage through the Senate through unanimous consent, without any debate or amendment.

I objected.

This bill would have had a big impact on the state of Utah, creating 1.3 million acres of wilderness - about half of that in Utah - and permanently reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). That would have made any reform of that flawed program impossible.

Coming from a state where two-thirds of the land is owned by the federal government, where we can’t do anything without leave from the federal government, that would have hurt.

When the federal government owns large amounts of land in your state it means your schools are underfunded; fire, search, and rescue are underfunded; local government is underfunded. That underfunding results from the fact that most of the land is owned by the federal government. You can’t tax that land. You receive pennies on the dollar for a program called Payment in Lieu of Taxes. Most of the land cannot be developed privately. Most of the land cannot be taxed by the states and localities.

Now make no mistake. I’m not talking about developing our National Parks. We don’t want to set up an oil drilling rig under the Delicate Arch. Of the 33.3 million acres owned by the federal government in Utah, just 12 million of them are parks, forests, wilderness, or recreation areas. The vast majority of the rest of federal land could be developed, taxed, and used to create revenue. But right now that land that is excessively restricted and environmentally degraded as a result of poor federal land management policies. And many of these degrading policies are linked to the LWCF.

I am not opposed to compromise. I am open to reforming the LWCF. If the program could be reformed so that the fund was used for states to buy land, and not the federal government, I could support that. That is how the program was originally designed. States were supposed to get 60 percent of LWCF money. Instead, states have only received 25 percent. That must change.

Also, our National Park Service is already suffering from over $10 billion worth of maintenance backlogs. The federal government should not be buying more land when it can’t properly manage the land it has now. LWCF money must first be spent on ending the existing maintenance backlog before more new land can be purchased.

But my biggest issue with the bill was that it did nothing to address the imminent threat Utah faces from unilateral executive land grabs through the Antiquities Act. I offered to drop my objection to the entire bill in exchange for adding just two-words: “or Utah.”

These two words would permanently give rural Utahns the peace of mind that the land they use for grazing, farming, hunting, shooting, and a variety of other activities couldn’t be stolen from them with the stroke of a Presidential pen. It’s the same peace of mind already enjoyed by people in Alaska and Wyoming. They already have an exemption from the Antiquities Act.

All I asked for was equal treatment for my fellow Utahns.

And that call for equality was rejected.

I will continue to work with my colleagues on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to find an adequate compromise that best serves Utah interests, including reforms for the LWCF. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Lands, securing such a deal will be my top priority.

But what I won’t do is sign off on a deal that is bad for Utah.