GOP Settles the Score on Girls Sports
When Mary Gregory swept nine events at the Raw Federation match last weekend, it shattered four world records in women’s weightlifting. There’s just one problem — Mary isn’t a woman.
When Mary Gregory swept nine events at the Raw Federation match last weekend, it shattered four world records in women’s weightlifting. There’s just one problem — Mary isn’t a woman. Suddenly, the “accomplishment” — a biological man overpowering real females — isn’t so impressive. In fact, competitors will tell you, it’s a joke. An unfunny one, more Olympians are warning, since it will almost certainly mean the end of women’s sports.
And sooner than you think. If women care about the integrity of their games at all, 2004 Gold Medal winner Dame Kelly Holmes argues, it’s time “to boycott events.” Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies is on board. After all, she argued, “This is a trans woman, a male body, with male physiology setting a world record and winning a women’s event in America in powerlifting. A woman with female biology cannot compete… it’s a pointless unfair playing field.” Joining a chorus of athletes across the political spectrum, more girls are pleading with the culture to turn back from this genderless anarchy.
Today, Davies argues, political correctness has lowered the standards so much that men can compete against women “no surgery required… no hormones… no medical diagnosis… just self-ID and reduced testosterone to a level [still] x5 the highest average (98 percent) of [real] females.” It’s “madness!” she argues. The whole reason we have men and women’s sports, she points out, is “because we are biologically different. Performance 100 percent confirms that. The reason steroids (including testosterone) are on the banned list is because using them give you an advantage.”
While the rest of the sports world worries about other Mary Gregories, House Democrats did some heavy lifting of their own for him. Turns out, the so-called party of women doesn’t really care about women that much at all. If it did, it wouldn’t be working so hard to define them out of existence. Unfortunately, that’s the reality of the activist Equality Act. If it passes — and Democrats are doing everything they can to guarantee it does — women’s sports won’t be the only casualty. Not by a long shot. We’re talking about a complete dismantling of religious freedom, education, business, privacy, parental rights and speech. Don’t be fooled by the name. The only thing equal about the Equality Act is the amount of destruction it will cause in every corner of American life.
Of course, during Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee mark-up, the Left wasn’t exactly eager to talk about the fallout of their proposal. Fortunately for Americans who care about conscience and the First Amendment, Republicans have an all-star team of conservatives on the committee — men and women who are willing to cut through the cozy soundbites to the Left’s real agenda. From the drop of the gavel, stalwarts like Reps. Doug Collins (R-Colo.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), and Mike Johnson (R-La.) made it their business to expose the secrets of H.R. 5 and how it could crush parents, Christians, small businesses, teachers, and faith-based groups.
No one supports discrimination, Republicans argued, but how we define it matters. Democrats think something as simple as setting a reasonable dress code at work or keeping men out of the girls’ bathroom is “intolerance.” To you, it might just be common sense. To the 240 cosponsors of this bill, it’s cause for punishment. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) reiterated that Wednesday when he said Americans need to “get over” their “hang-ups, so we don’t impose our beliefs on others.” That’s interesting, since those wanting to redefine biology and human sexuality have no trouble imposing their beliefs on the rest of us.
When it comes to actual faith, Pelosi’s party is so hostile to it that they’ve stripped out every religious liberty exemption from the bill. When Rep. Gohmert tried to replace them, all 22 Democrats voted no. Just like they voted no on language protecting parental rights (read the horror stories of what’s happening here), conscience rights, and women’s sports. When Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) tried to save girls’ athletics, Democrats said his amendment was a “solution looking for a problem.”
Tell that to Connecticut high schooler Selina Soule and the thousands of girls across America, who are losing scholarships, team eligibility, and their future in sports because Democrats insist on being puppets of the .6 percent. The first thing Rep. Steube noticed about the bill, he told me on “Washington Watch,” is that “when you start to read the definition section, it actually changes the words ‘women’ and ‘woman’ to be ‘any person’… I mean, it’s completely blurring the lines… I gave examples in the committee of [men in women’s sports], and one Democrat said, ‘Oh, this is just hypothetical.’ I came back to her, and I said… ‘You obviously didn’t hear me.’” He rattled off story after story of men overpowering — or worse, hurting — women, like Fallon Fox, a man fighting against women in mixed martial arts, who shattered Tamikka Brents’s eye socket and gave her a concussion.
Girls’ sports is just the tip of the iceberg — but it’s an iceberg that’s going to sink our country if we’re not careful. Contact your House member and tell them to vote NO on H.R. 5. If you need more proof of the dangers lurking behind this bill, check out FRC’s new publication, “The Inequality of the Equality Act.”
Originally published here.
Freedom Is Contagious under New Health Care Rule
You’d have to look long and hard to find a more universally despised idea than Obama’s HHS mandate. In one of the most clarifying moments of his presidency, the order went out: everyone, regardless of their beliefs, would become unwilling partners in the president’s culture of death. If your employer performs abortion, you’ll participate. If your business sells contraception or pregnancy-ending drugs, you will too. And if you’re an employer, church, monastery, or school, you’ll cover both — even if you morally oppose it.
The outcry was swift. If women have a “choice,” then nurses, doctors, and health care workers should too. Regardless of what Americans think about abortion, only the true extremists ever thought people should be forced to participate in them. Before Donald Trump, those extremists were in charge of the government. Now, thankfully, that’s all changed — along with the government’s approach to conscience rights.
After a long journey through the rule process, President Trump is finally closing the chapter on one of the worst assaults on religious liberty in a generation. Thursday morning, on the National Day of Prayer, one of America’s prayers was answered. A policy protecting “physicians, pharmacists, nurses, teachers, students and faith-based charities” officially took effect, giving teeth to more than two dozen laws. No one in the health care industry should have to choose between helping patients and their moral beliefs.
“Together,” President Trump told us at a gathering in the Rose Garden, “we are building a culture that cherishes the dignity and worth of human life.” As HHS’s Roger Severino has said, “Never forget that religious freedom is a primary freedom, that it is a civil right that deserves enforcement and respect.” Today is another example of this president keeping his promises. And not just any promise, but his sworn oath to the American people. Our deepest thanks to an administration who is not wavering in its determination to protect our most sacred property — conscience.
Originally published here.
National Day of Prayer: America’s Lifeline to God
There’s a temptation on days like the National Day of Prayer to think events like these are only for certain believers. But Thursday morning, as faith leaders from across America gathered in the bright sunshine of the White House Rose Garden, I think we were all reminded of just how powerful it is when people of every background come together to seek God’s face.
Just days after the most unimaginable tragedy struck their community, rabbis from Poway, California made a point of flying to Washington and joining in our prayer that God would heal this nation of the hatred that took one of their own. Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, whose life was spared when a longtime friend and Chabad member shielded him from a gunman’s bullets, sat in the row next to me. I had the chance to tell him that we’re all praying for them. That we stand with his synagogue and others on behalf of religious freedom — and against the bigotry that’s been inflamed by people who use their positions, power and platforms to marginalize faith.
“No one,” Vice President Mike Pence emphasized, “should ever fear for their safety in a house of worship in America or anywhere in the world. And yet, we live in a time when we have witnessed unspeakable attacks on people of faith…” He gave a meaningful look to Rabbi Goldstein and said, “As Americans, we mourn with those who mourn and grieve with those who grieve. And we condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms.”
The theme of this year’s event seemed especially fitting then, John 13:34’s simple admonishment, “Love one another.” As David Closson and I wrote in a new column for Fox News, there have been fewer chapters more challenging for America than what we face now. But in that “prayer is a lifeline to God.”
“This [national] call comes at a critical juncture. As political civility wanes, institutional trust declines, and resurgent international terrorism dominates headlines, America faces a spiritual crisis… Although cultural elites increasingly ridicule and deride it, prayer, as modeled in the Bible, is not an empty gesture. Instead, prayer is the believer’s petition to the Creator of the universe for justice and righteousness. That is why, throughout the Bible, God’s people prayed in all situations, including national emergencies. Their example is worth emulating.”
We have an opportunity to set aside partisan bickering and the politics of division to unite in prayer for our nation, leaders, and local communities. As President Trump told us at a special dinner for 100 or so faith leaders Wednesday night, “America will be a nation that believes forever, and we certainly believe — more than anyone — the power of prayer. It’s the most powerful thing there is.”
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Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
