What Is the Equality Act and Why Is It Dangerous?

             Families, communities, and nations are stronger when children are allowed to be children, and adults are expected to act like adults. College students – the majority of which are over 18 years of age – are given safe places and coddled to keep them safe from opposing viewpoints. While college students are being treated as children, adults are insisting that children think and act as adults.

            According to Emilie Kao at The Heritage Foundation, one of the ways that children are being treated as adults is the way that the left targets them with “sexual content and destructive gender ideology” at younger and younger ages. The innocence of children is being destroyed by adults who bring the sexual information and gender ideology into their classrooms. State governments and local school boards have joined forces with social media and entertainment to target the children. 

            Kao stated that the Biden administration is poised to make the situation worse “by infusing K-12 schools with destructive ideology, politicizing medicine, and undermining parental rights.” On Inauguration Day, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that “forces all K-12 public schools in the nation that accept federal funds to adopt sexual orientation and gender identity policies.” These policies will allow biological males to play on sports teams for girls and use bathrooms and locker rooms meant for biological females. Policies like these Promise to America's Children will destroy the progress made under Title IX, and they will deprive all students of privacy and safety.

            Democrats controlling Congress will bring the Equality Act to a vote in the House of Representatives next week. Almost every American agrees that “Every person should be treated with dignity and respect,” and that no one should be “discriminated against simply because they identify as gay or transgender.” However, the Equality Act will further divide the nation by turning “disagreements over biological sex and marriage into legal ‘discrimination.’” Kao further explains the current problems and warns against future difficulties if the Equality Act becomes the law of the land.

In the states, sexual orientation and gender identity laws and policies have already led to the punishment of doctors and hospitals who don’t want to perform surgical interventions to affirm gender identity and of teachers who don’t use “preferred pronouns.”

It has harmed girls who have lost sports competitions and scholarships to males who “identify” as females. In one school, a kindergarten girl was the victim of sexual assault by a boy who was allowed into the girls’ restroom after “identifying” as gender-fluid.

State lawmakers and parents have tried to fight back. But by cementing transgender ideology into federal law, the Equality Act will serve as a modern Trojan horse in medicine and education, causing irreversible harms to children.

            There is still hope because concerned parents, citizens, and lawmakers are uniting around the ten principles of the “Promise to America’s Children.” The principles are aimed at “protecting children’s minds and bodies, and relationships with their parents.” Kao stated that “The promise begins with the pledge to protect children’s minds from graphic sexual content and the sexual orientation and gender identity agenda in the classroom by demanding that any curricula related to sex or gender, in any subject, require an opt-in from parents.” 

            Wise parents will recognize the dangers in the Equality Act and will join the efforts to fight against it. If the Equality Act becomes the law, curricula can be added for K-12 that would “include controversial information, such as suggesting that a girl can be trapped in a boy’s body or vice versa and that ‘gender transition” is both healthy and helpful.”

            The passage of the Equality Act could also “pressure K-12 schools and federally funded colleges and universities to adopt the sexual orientation and gender identity curricula and preferred pronoun policies.”

            Just as public schools were ordered to “teach black history to remedy discrimination against African Americans,” courts could “order schools to teach the sexual orientation and gender identity curricula.”

            This could be considered to be child abuse because all children “deserve to learn in a classroom where they and their views are treated with respect.” No adults have the right to force their political views on children and teenagers, particularly viewpoints “about gender and sexual orientation. Those with disfavored views could be stigmatized by such conditions.

The Promise to America’s Children recognizes that biological differences between the sexes are integral to the personhood and health of all children….

The promise recognizes that parents are the ones best suited to provide the love and care their children deserve. Unfortunately, the Equality Act places strain on this essential relationship by pitting parents against the education system, the medical profession, and federal law….

The Promise to America’s Children places the protection of Children’s minds, bodies, and families first and foremost. A child’s best chance at a happy and healthy life is one free from sexual politics, one in which kids can be kids.

            Wise parents and lawmakers will read Kao’s article in full and will go to this site to get involved. Children and teenagers have the right to live and mature in an environment where they do not have to think and act as adults. We can keep our nation as a place where children are allowed to be children and teenagers are allowed to be teenagers. By doing so, we will strengthen families, communities, and nations.