The Equality Act: A transgender threat to individual rights
Democrats’ proposed “Equality Act” would prohibit discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and “gender identity,” adding them to the list of protected characteristics such as race, sex, and religion.
How can anyone be opposed to a law that promises equality and bans discrimination?
The answer: Protections for sexual orientation are one thing, but when it comes to protecting gender identity, opposition is warranted. The proposed law is intended to protect some individuals while trampling on the hard-won rights of women and many others.
If you identify as something other than your birth gender, so be it. I don’t believe that anyone should discriminate against you or hinder your full participation in civic life.
But at the same time, I don’t believe you should be given the right to penalize the rest of us for failing to make an ever-expanding number of allowances and special accommodations for you.
Target Stores’ well publicized bathroom fiasco illustrates the problem.
Attempting to satisfy progressive social justice demands, Target Stores announced that shoppers could use the bathroom that matched their gender identity. The result was all-too-predictable outrages as men began using women’s bathrooms. Target eventually chose to back off, instead choosing to install separate gender-neutral bathrooms in its stores.
Should every facility open to the public, including all stores and restaurants, be required to install a third gender-neutral bathroom? Or will opening existing bathrooms to all based on their gender identities suffice?
Answering questions like those is a predictable consequence of the Equality Act if activist judges are given the opportunity to rule.
Rejecting biology and common sense, the left would have us believe there are more than two genders. As many as 112 have been claimed by imaginative souls. They come with their own personal pronouns as well: “ze,” “sie,” “hir,” “co,” “ev,” “xe,” “thon,” and others.
As a precursor of things to come if the so-called Equality Act becomes federal law, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation last year threatening jail time for healthcare professionals who “willfully and repeatedly” refuse to use a patient’s preferred pronouns.
New York City’s Commission on Human Rights issued guidelines warning employers, landlords, and business owners that if they intentionally use the wrong pronoun with transgender workers and tenants, they face potential fines of as much as $250,000.
Should the act become law, it’s easy to see how such strictures would be extended to all of us.
Am I alone in my concerns? No, many on both sides of the political divide have strong reservations as to how the act would play out.
Feminists and children’s advocates see the Equality Act’s transgender protections sweeping away hard-won gains in women’s and family protections. Are you ready for homeless men in battered women’s shelters?
Feminists point out that if the word “sex” is expanded to gender identity, then women and girls do not exist as a separate category worthy of civil-rights protection.
As an example, President Obama’s Department of Education expanded the definition of “sex” in Title IX’s anti-discrimination provisions to include “gender identity.” As a result, some trans-identifying students have sued their colleges for not granting them access to opposite-sex bathrooms while female students have sued their colleges because they want sex-segregated bathrooms.
Radical feminist attorney Kara Danksy slammed transgender activism as “men’s rights.” Canadian feminist Meghan Murphy was kicked off of Twitter for stating that a male who identifies as female is still a male.
The term “feminist” would lose its meaning in the unisex world the Equality Act would create.
Equally troubling is the act’s intent to void the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom in the name of protecting LGBTQ individuals.
Despite being the first freedom enumerated in the First Amendment, the act specifically declares that the federal government can require individuals to conform to its provisions regardless of longstanding and deeply held religious beliefs.
This is in sharp contrast to existing federal law that specifically provides that healthcare providers may refuse to participate in abortions or euthanasia. The Equality Act makes no comparable allowances for those who choose to avoid involvement in LGBTQ activities.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court has weighed in on government’s use of force to impel speech and action on matters of conscience.
The court held in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette that “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, religion or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
Expect progressives to howl when the Supreme Court rules the Equality Act unconstitutional.
True social justice comes when no LGBTQ individuals are denied housing, employment, or other basic freedoms on account of their lifestyle. That same social justice requires that women’s rights and deeply-held religious convictions are honored and protected as well.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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