by Jack Minor
A veteran in the conservative movement for nearly five decades says Republicans voted for the Violence Against Women Act this week because they are cowards who are afraid of radical feminists and that fear overcame any concerns they may have had about the content of the bill.
“We call it feminist pork, this bill was dreamed up by radical feminists to promote their agenda,” said Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum and the main force behind stopping the Equal Rights Amendment. “The Republicans voted for this horrible bill for one basic reason. They are afraid of the feminist lobby and would rather vote for it than stand up for principles.”
The renewal of the Violence Against Women Act sounds noble enough based on the title of the bill. However an actual reading of the bill reveals its truth.
For instance, the bill calls upon states to legalize child prostitution under the guise of protecting children.
In the section on combating child sex trafficking, the bill lists “model state criminal law protection” for children engaged in sex trafficking: It recommends states simply pass laws preventing the prosecution of persons under 18 years of age.
The bill says states should “treat an individual under 18 years of age who has been arrested for engaging in, or attempting to engage in, a sexual act with another person in exchange for monetary compensation as a victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons,” and “prohibit the charging or prosecution” of the individual.
Critics say making child prostitution illegal by saying they are victims could actually end up causing the very same thing they are trying to avoid. Removing the threat of prosecution will provide pimps and traffickers the ability to apply additional pressure on children by reassuring them what they are doing is perfectly legal.
“The feminist ideology is that women are always victims and men are always batterers. This is why they want to legalize child prostitution, after all it’s the man’s fault,” Schlafly said. “This bill should not have the right to promote state legislation, especially legislation that will harm children by legalizing prostitution by minors.”
In addition to calling on states to legalize child prostitution, the bill also goes beyond its title description by expanding its scope to allow “gays,” transgendered people and immigrants to have access to the programs offered in the bill.
VAWA was first passed in 1994 and has been renewed twice before. Last week the House voted to approve the Senate version of the bill which was written mainly by Democrats on a 257-166 vote with 60 Republicans from the conservative wing voting against it.
Prior to the vote, House majority leader Eric Cantor threatened tea-party Republicans who had problems with the bill, warning them that if they blocked the Senate bill from coming to a vote it would cause a “civil war.”
Another concern with the bill is that while most everyone is opposed to domestic violence and stalking, the bill expands the definitions to include causing “emotional distress” or using “unpleasant speech.”
“Feminists have bragged that they believe domestic violence doesn’t have to by physical, but it is whatever the woman says it is,” Schlafly explained. “Their view is that genders are interchangeable and there’s no difference between men and women, except when it is convenient for them. This whole bill is based on the gender stereotype that the woman is always the victim and the man is always the batterer.”
The problem is by now defining domestic violence to include emotional distress and with the expanded protections for LGBT persons, the federal government has helped buttress hate crimes legislation signed into law by president Obama.
During debate on the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a supporter of the bill, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., said, “This bill addresses our resolve to end violence based on prejudice and to guarantee that all Americans regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability or all of these ‘philias’ and fetishes and ‘ism’s’ that were put forward need not live in fear because of who they are. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this rule … .”
When asked by Congress if the law would protect a pastor who was attacked by a “gay” activist after quoting the Bible in a sermon on homosexuality, Attorney General Eric Holder responded that the minister would not be protected.
“Well, the statute would not – would not necessarily cover that. We’re talking about crimes that have a historic basis. Groups who have been targeted for violence as a result of the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, that is what this statute tends – is designed to cover. We don’t have the indication that the attack was motivated by a person’s desire to strike at somebody who was in one of these protected groups. That would not be covered by the statute,” Holder said.
Schlafly said the Republicans essentially voted for the bill simply because of the title rather than the language in the law.
“The Republicans are afraid to fight the feminists and so they roll over and give them what they want. It doesn’t matter what the bill actually says, they are afraid of being accused of fighting a war on women and so they refuse to stand up for what is right,” she said.
She said fear of the feminists spreads beyond the Republicans in Congress.
“My next edition of The Phyllis Schlafly Report is going to be on women in combat,” she explained. “I subscribe to two different cartoon services. However, when I asked to have a political cartoon done on this subject both of them turned me down. They’re afraid to even do a cartoon about feminists in combat.”
On his radio show Thursday, Rush Limbaugh agreed with Schlafly that the bill had nothing to do with protecting women.
“It’s classic, somebody proposes this thing under the guise that women are being beat to a pulp in this country because of the Republican war on women,” Limbaugh said. “So now the Democrats get all this credit for being compassionate, tolerant and protective of women. The whole idea is to create the notion that there are some people out there that are violent towards women. They’re obviously a bunch of Neanderthal Republicans and now we’re going to be able to punish them.”
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