Sen. James Lankford nails the “Equality Act” for what it really is!
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See Lankford: ‘The Equality Act Is Not About Equality’ - It’s About ‘Imposing and Prohibiting Disagreement’
June 25, 2021
“The Equality Act is not about equality. It’s about imposing and prohibiting disagreement. We’re Americans. We can respect each other and disagree. We can live next door to each other and disagree. Let’s prove it in this body by not passing the poorly named Equality Act but actually demonstrating what this act says it wants to demonstrate. Let’s treat each other with respect in our differences and honor us in that.”
Senator Lankford is absolutely correct about the deceptively named “Equality Act”. The Act is about its supporters imposing their will upon the entire population of the United States, and prohibiting the American people from exercising one of mankind’s most fundamental rights ____ the right to mutually agree in their contracts and associations, and this includes their social and commercial activities.
Let us all remember that our system of government reserves to the States and people therein, all powers not delegated to the United States by our federal Constitution. In essence, our founders created a big tent system, intentionally protecting the right of the people within the various states to regulate “. . . all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.” And under this big-tent system, Massachusetts was the first state to legalize same sex marriage, confirming the system works, even for those wanting same sex marriages!
In addition, our founders also provided Article V, an amendment process in our federal Constitution to accommodate necessary change at the federal level, but only by consent of the governed as laid out in Article V.
But instead of embracing our constitutional system, those backing the “Equality Act”, including members of Congress who took an oath to support and defend our written Constitution, are quite comfortable to allow, and even encourage, their will being imposed upon the entire population of the United States by enforcing legislation [the Equality Act] encompassing a subject matter [sex] not granted by the people to Congress as required by Article V, with the exception being the 19th Amendment, which does grant power to Congress to adopt and enforce “appropriate legislation” regarding “sex”, but specifically limited as follows:
Amendment XIX
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
“Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation .”
So, the question remains, where in the Constitution has Congress been delegated power to adopt and enforce “appropriate legislation” to forbid distinctions made within the States based upon sex, and likewise forbid distinctions made based upon sex in the people’s social and commercial activities within the various state borders?"
And let us all remember the protection which our Constitution’s Tenth Amendment declares in crystal clear language : “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.”
JWK
“If the Constitution was ratified under the belief, sedulously propagated on all sides that such protection was afforded, would it not now be a fraud upon the whole people to give a different construction to its powers?”___ Justice Story