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Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 08:23 PM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

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 yesterday'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 yesterday 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."


Tony Perkins' Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.


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