The Patriot Post® · The 'Equality Act'

The so-called “Equality Act” passed the House of Representatives Friday. Every Democrat voted for it, and all but eight Republicans voted against it. 

It does many things, like amending civil-rights law to include “gender identity.” And it contains the kind of broad language that the courts have used for decades to force radical social change on the American people. 

The legislation tramples on privacy rights and eviscerates the legal definition of women and girls. It will likely lead to the end of girls sports by forcing them to compete against biological men, which is already happening. 

It will make it more likely that your wives, daughters, and granddaughters will be forced to share locker rooms, bathrooms, showers, and dorms with men and boys.

But there’s more. It will be hard to defend religious liberty because it declares that the rights of various sexual minorities trump religious liberty. 

Fortunately, the Equality Act will be stopped in the Senate. Over the weekend, several Republican senators pledged to me that they would do everything possible to prevent a vote. If by some chance it did get a vote and passed, I am confident that President Trump would veto it. 

But here’s what is so disturbing and revealing: In 1993, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) passed the Congress. It reaffirmed that the First Amendment was a paramount principle in our republic and that religious liberty took precedence in government policy. 

That bill passed unanimously in the House of Representatives. It passed the Senate 97 to 3. It was signed into law by Bill Clinton. 

The Equality Act just passed essentially repeals RFRA. The position of Republicans has not changed since 1993. The vast majority of Republicans continues to support religious liberty. 

What has changed is the Democrat Party and so-called “progressives.” They went from near unanimous support of RFRA in 1993 to throwing religious liberty under the bus in 2019. 

Share this fact with your children and grandchild who might be tempted by the siren song of the Left.

Amash vs. Trump

You may have heard over the weekend that Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) became the first Republican to call for the impeachment of President Trump. Don’t lose any sleep over it. Amash has been an odd ball from day one. 

He rarely votes with conservatives on life and values issues. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said this about Amash:

You’ve got to understand Justin Amash… He votes more with Nancy Pelosi than he ever votes with me.  It’s a question whether he’s even in our Republican conference as a whole.

We’ve tried over the years to tell our friends in Michigan that he is trouble, but some were attracted to his small government, libertarian philosophy. One pro-life, pro-Trump conservative, State Rep. Jim Lower, has announced plans to challenge Amash in the GOP primary.

But brace yourself. Amash is about to become very famous as the media’s new favorite Republican willing to bash the president.

Buttigieg vs. Jefferson

In a recent interview, Hugh Hewitt asked South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg whether he found the extremism of Shiite Iran to be more dangerous than the Sunni extremism of the Taliban. Buttigieg responded:

Well, you know, not unlike Christianity when it is motivating someone to do something extreme. It can have a thousand different flavors.

Why did he feel it was so important to take a gratuitous shot at Christians? 

I looked at my world globe and I can’t find the Christian country that is engaged in the extremism he talked about. But I do see lots of Islamic countries that have the death penalty for homosexuality. It strikes me as revealing that Buttigieg felt the need to apologize for Islam while attacking Christianity.

Buttigieg also said that he supports renaming the Jefferson/Jackson Day dinners that Democrats hold across the country, just like Republicans have their Lincoln Day dinners. He thus joined the radical left-wing mob that wants to erase our history. 

Today’s left has no respect for our founding fathers. 

But you can relax. During a town-hall event with Fox News, he said he didn’t want to blow up the Jefferson Memorial. So he took a “no demolition pledge.” That’s good. 

In fact, I think the other 22 Democrat candidates should take the “no demolition pledge” to let us know just how far their anti-Americanism goes. While statues are being torn down and schools and street names are being changed, it would be good to know if Mount Rushmore will survive.