Legislative Session Out of Touch with Reality
This week would be better labeled, “Washington’s Dump on Women.” From the passage of a resolution removing the Equal Rights Amendment’s ratification deadline to the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, and a hearing on the Equality Act, it’s clear the Democrats are out of touch with women. What all four of these measures have in common are sexual orientation and gender identity.
Eagle Forum has fought for years against the ERA because it creates a sex-neutral society that fails to recognize the beautiful differences between the male and female biological sexes. Make no mistake, the debate surrounding the ERA is no longer about women’s rights, rather, it’s about sexual orientation and gender identity. For this reason, the ERA isn’t just receiving push back from organizations like Eagle Forum, but also feminists like the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF). According to WoLF:
“We cannot give gender activists an open invitation to broaden their challenges to sex-based protections in front of a perplexingly sympathetic judiciary. This is not a theoretical concern; Gender identity activists, and even some men’s rights activists, believe that the ERA is the best way to ‘win’ their respective legal battles against the female sex class, and both groups are fiercely advocating for its ratification.”
Simply put, the advent of sexual orientation and gender identity has changed the meaning of the ERA. The ERA was bad before SOGI, but it’s even worse now.
But, if more evidence was needed that SOGI, among its other implications, dismantles women’s rights, then look no further than VAWA. The SOGI language in VAWA has been interpreted to allow biological males to enter areas that should be safe spaces for women in vulnerable situations, including prisons and domestic violence shelters. How can our legislators not find it ironic that a bill entitled the Violence Against WOMEN Act allows men identifying as women into women’s only spaces? Eagle Forum has opposed VAWA since its inception because it has been a vehicle used to fund liberal, anti-men, and anti-family programs that have been ineffective at stopping violence or helping women in crisis. The inclusion of the SOGI agenda highlights the bill’s true anti-woman agenda.
Now, on to the Senate’s role in harming women. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Wednesday, March 17 on the Equality Act. As you may recall, the Equality Act codifies sexual orientation and gender identity into law. Like the Equal Rights Amendment and VAWA, it creates a society that fails to provide and even recognize the accommodations needed for the differences in biological sex. These accommodations include women’s only nursing rooms, a women’s right to ask for a female doctor for intimate medical exams, and even women’s privacy and safety in locker rooms or domestic violence shelters. Not to mention, women’s opportunities in sports teams. If the Equality Act were to become public law, men will have a right to use women’s spaces simply because they identify as a woman.
While this report only highlights SOGI’s impact on women, it also has deep ramifications for religious liberty, conscience rights, and even pro-life protections. It is now more vital than ever that you connect with Eagle Forum and fight these harmful policies!
To view, your members vote on both the ERA resolution and VAWA, click here and here.
