The Party That Extremism Built

by Tony Perkins: When Democrats ask for their jobs back next year, there should be two dates on voter's mind: February 25 and May 17. One should have been an unremarkable Monday. That all changed when 44 men and women marched to the Senate floor and justified taking the life of a newborn baby. Three months after that extreme, the House is taking its turn at gut-wrenching clarity -- this time, with a bill that would wad up 231 years of freedom and throw it in the garbage along with the rest of the so-called "personal choices" liberals won't protect. If there was ever any doubt that Democrats are out to destroy the republic, today's vote on the Equality Act ought to have made that quite clear.

Apparently, the party of legal infanticide wasn't radical enough. Now, Speaker Nancy Pelsoi (D-Calif.) is going for broke. She doesn't just want to treat infants like garbage, but women, freedom, parents, science, employers, and religious organizations too. When 228 members of her party cast their "yes" votes for H.R. 5, they weren't only saying yes to the most extreme piece of LGBT legislation in history -- they were saying no to girls' sports, parents' authority, religious liberty, women's rights, privacy, and the free market.

What most people don't understand is that this campaign was never about equality. That was just a convenient stalking horse to get what the far-Left really wants: raw power. Think about it, Stella Morabito writes in a frightening column about the end-game of H.R. 5. "If you and your cronies wanted to control everybody's lives, how exactly would you go about [it]?" Obviously, you wouldn't come right out and say it. "You would mask your self-supremacist intentions with a benign and trendy word like 'equality.' You'd pretend that your project was about helping a vulnerable minority."

In this case, that minority is a handy one. Society is already trained to tiptoe around the people who identify as LGBT. That's why this legislation is so shrewd -- it plays right into the country's hypersensitivities about tolerance. As Stella points out, Democrats already have an infrastructure in place that shames anyone who with morals, questions, or points of concern about their agenda. Add that to the Left's around-the-clock reward system for CEOs, organizations, and celebrities who support the con job, and suddenly, the culture is ripe for the taking. "It's another attempt by a ruling micro-clique to exert mega-control over everyone else's lives..."

And eight Republicans were foolish enough to take the bait. Reps. Susan Brooks (Ind.), Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Will Hurd (Texas), John Katko (N.Y.), Tom Reed (N.Y.), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), and Greg Walden (Ore.) played right into the Democrats' hands. And it's not as if the warning signs aren't there. Teachers are already being fired for using the "wrong" pronoun. Girls are already being violated in restrooms and changing rooms and bathrooms. Shop owners are already being driven out of business for their beliefs. Female athletes are already losing scholarships and competitions to biological males. Taxpayers are already bankrolling abortion. Doctors, nurses, and therapists are already handcuffed into violating their conscience. Religious charities are already closing their doors because the government wants to force them to change their standards. America is already catering to the 0.6 percent at the expense of the other 99.4. This would just give the government more painful tools to punish non-conformers.

"No one who disagrees with this bill," Congressman Doug Collins (R-Ga.) said, "believes [anyone] ought to be treated wrongly, badly. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) echoed his friend. "There are some fundamental principles that we ought to agree on: don't hurt other people, respect the right of doctors to do no harm, respect the right of parents to protect their children... Unfortunately, [the bill before us today] violates these principles in the most fundamental way... And this isn't speculation. Many states have adopted similar laws so we can see firsthand the result of them. This bill harms people in so many ways, taking away safe spaces for women, undermining women... We know this will happen because it already has."

One after another, conservatives held the line. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) warned that H.R. 5 is "a classic example of passing something now and figuring out what it actually means later. We have been here before. If the devil is in the detail, we're in for a lot of devilish surprises. This is a small price for some greater good [that] the bill's proponents have argued." She's right, Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) made clear. "This is not equality. This is far from it." Almost as far as the brave new Left is from the American people.
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Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . This article was on Tony Perkin's Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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