ACTION ALERT:  Tell Congress to VOTE NO on H.R. 5!

April 4, 2019

Family Watch International recently joined with over 80 organizations, private universities and parochial schools in opposing H.R. 5, a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives we call the Inequality Act. Its supporters say it would create fairness for the LGBTQ community, but in reality, it would create inequality and potential dangers for all women.

H.R. 5 would allow men living as women (transgender) to be placed in women’s shelters in cases of domestic violence. It would also allow transgender men to use women’s locker rooms and showers in high schools, colleges and other public facilities.

We ask that you call your member of Congress and encourage them to vote NO on H.R. 5. Call 202-225-3121, and the operator will put you in contact with your Member of Congress. If you prefer to send a written comment, go to https://www.house.gov and put in your zip code in the upper right-hand corner. That will take you to the contact page for your member of Congress.

It’s not just fact-based social conservatives like us who oppose this bill. Kara Dansky, a lawyer and board member at the Women’s Liberation Front—a self-described “radical feminist organization”—recently joined lesbians and feminists who spoke out against the bill. “The Equality Act, which sounds all well and good, is an unmitigated disaster for women and girls,” the feminist lawyer said.

In its statement against H.R. 5, the Women’s Liberation website notes that three teenage girls in California were recently traumatized when a naked man entered a shower in the women’s locker room. They reported it to the police, but the police did nothing because the man identifies himself as a woman. “The identity provisions of the Equality Act will make this state of affairs the law of the land in all 50 states, enshrining in federal law a shocking repudiation of the long-established right to bodily privacy from the opposite sex, through the lawful provision of single-sex accommodations,” the feminist website states.

The original Equality Act (as it is officially named) was developed by U.S. Representatives Bella Abzug (D-NY) and Ed Koch (D-NY) in 1974. That effort went nowhere, but in 2015 it was reintroduced by Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI), who reintroduced it again in 2017 and again this year. Unlike past years, the legislation now has 240 co-sponsors—237 Democrats and 3 Republicans—more than the 218 needed for passage.

We have to be loud in our opposition!

The Equality Act, if it becomes law, threatens to halt the advances women’s sports have achieved since the passage of Title IX in 1972. That law requires equal accommodation for women, but under H.R. 5, transgender men would be free to compete against biological women and obtain scholarships and other awards intended to benefit women.

The legislation would also subject employers and others to expensive lawsuits if they fail to adhere to strict preferred pronoun policies.

To see the letter Family Watch International and other organizations sent, click on: We Oppose H.R. 5.