What’s at Stake
in the Left’s Effort to Redefine ‘Sex’
in Pennsylvania Law
Michael
Geer / @MichaelGeer / May
20, 2017 /
The Daily Signal
State
capitals across the country are proving they are not immune to the
malady that has afflicted the policy process in Washington.
The
latest case in point: Pennsylvania.
In
a quietly released statement issued late on a Friday afternoon, the
Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, an agency of the state
government, announced a proposal to effectively redefine the word
“sex” in the state’s discrimination law to also include “sexual
orientation” and “gender identity,” or “SOGI” for short.
This proposal wouldn’t change the law—only
the commission’s “guidance” on the matter. But this new
“guidance” would mean the law would be enforced as if
it had changed.
This guidance comes on the heels of repeated
failures to accomplish the same outcome through the legitimate way of
changing laws—through the legislative process and with the
consent of the governed.
It
is a move that mimics the Obama administration’s executive and
bureaucratic overreaches when Congress rejected LGBT demands for
changes in federal law. It also represents a serious usurpation of
legislative authority and an end run around our political system.
First,
a little background and some history.
For
more than a decade, LGBT activists have sought to add sexual
orientation and gender identity language to Pennsylvania’s
anti-discrimination statute. This has become one of the most hardly
fought social policy efforts of the left.
Pennsylvania
is certainly not unique in receiving such challenges from the social
left.
It
is notable, however, that Pennsylvania citizens have repeatedly been
successful in stopping these proposals in the Legislature when most
of the states in the northeast have not.
There
are several reasons for this:
- History
This diverse context has created higher
sensitivity to laws that would police and sanction beliefs. Simply
put, Pennsylvanians value tolerance.
Pennsylvania
has a long history of tolerance, religious freedom, and protecting
the rights of conscience. That heritage has drawn to the state a
citizenry that represents a broad array of religious backgrounds and
accepts those who are different.
- Intolerance in Other States
As
has been witnessed in other states, sexual orientation and gender
identity laws and regulations have worked against universal
tolerance. They have empowered government prosecutors and bureaucrats
to force actions and speech that can cause a citizen to violate their
conscience and religious convictions.
Just ask Barronelle
Stuztman or Melissa
Klein. Such coercive and
punitive action by government undermines tolerance and only spurs
division.
- An Affront to Women’s Rights
Examples of this can be found across the
country, whether it’s a
biologically male adult changing clothes in front of girls in a swim
club locker room in Seattle,
or teens
and children facing
similar circumstances in their schools, or female
school athletes seeing their opportunities for success evaporate as
physical males are being allowed to compete against them.
Sexual
orientation and gender identity laws have been used to suggest that
restricting bathroom use by biological sex is discriminatory. This
has forced policy changes that threaten bathroom personal privacy
and, in some cases, safety. The result is often an affront to the
rights of women.
These
and other concerns, brought to the attention of Pennsylvania
lawmakers by their constituents, have thus far succeeded in
preventing a statewide adoption of sexual orientation and gender
identity legislation.
This
despite significant spending by national special interests and the
hiring of some of the most powerful lobbyists in Harrisburg to
pressure the House and Senate to cave.
That
brings us to Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Tom Wolf.
Wolf, named
America’s most liberal governor,
instigated a shakeup in the Human Relations Commission by demoting
the chairman and installing a new chairman to further his agenda.
Pennsylvania
Gov. Tom Wolf has elected in 2014 and has vowed to seek re-election
in 2018. (Photo: Archie Carpenter/UPI/Newscom)
Now,
in the face of a legislative stalemate, the Pennsylvania Human Rights
Commission is making an end run around the Legislature to impose a
freedom-robbing policy through a bureaucratic agency that was founded
to guard our civil liberties.
The Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission’s
website, www.phrc.pa.gov,
is inviting public comment on the proposed guidance via email to
chreese@pa.gov through Friday, May 26.
“This
change in guidance by the [Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission]
effectively means a change in law, a change that would be devastating
to personal privacy and religious liberty,” said Randall Wenger,
chief counsel of the Independence Law Center.
“That’s
why it’s important that lovers of liberty make their voice heard to
the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission during their public
comment period.”
Lovers
of the legitimate, constitutional lawmaking process may wish to chime
in as well.
My
comments: The Liberals, the Progressives and the Democrats are at
Odds with God and His Word. They Hate God and His Word and want to
Convert the entire Nation to their Warped point of view.
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