PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 26, 2023

CONTACT: Press@eagleforum.org

Target: Stop “Targeting” Our Kids
State and National Groups Unite in Call for Target to Remove/Move Divisive “Trans Pride” Products
Group Sending Letter and Petition to Chip and Joanna Gaines
Seeking Support to Protect Childhood Innocence

URGENT ALERT!

WE NEED YOU IN COMMITTEE TOMORROW TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!  The bill that will stop unproven surgeries and hormonal treatment on minors under age 18 will be heard in committee on Tuesday, January 24th, at 2:00pm in the House Building, Room 30, in the House Health and Human services committee. HB 132, sponsored by representative Rex Shipp, will end experimental medical procedures that hurt and sterilize children. 
 
Medical doctors and mental health experts will be in the meeting to testify about the dangers of these procedures and why Utah must pass this bill to Protect our children. De-transitioner Chloe Cole will share her story about her journey through puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and a double mastectomy at age 15. 
 
We need you to be there please come and support this legislation. Let the committee members know that you expect them to protect Utah’s children by passing HB132. Please email, text and call all the Republican members of the committee and ask them to vote yes to protecting Utah’s children.
 
This bill prohibits a health care provider from performing a medical procedure on a minor for the purpose of attempted sex transitioning or attempted sex change. HB 132 PROHIBITS: 

• Hormonal transgender procedures on minors, which means cross-sex hormones, giving testosterone to biological girls who are trying to appear as boys and giving estrogen to biological boys who are trying to appear as girls 
• Performing a puberty inhibition procedure (puberty blocker) on minors. "Minor" means an individual who is less than 18 years old. 
•  "Sex characteristic-altering surgical procedure" for the purpose of effectuating or facilitating an individual's attempted sex change.  
• Any surgical procedure that is related to or necessary for a procedure that would result in the sterilization of a minor who is non-sterile; or removing any otherwise healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.

Please email, text and call all the Republican members of the committee and ask them to VOTE YES to protecting Utah’s children:Rep. Stewart E. Barlow
sbarlow@le.utah.gov
801-289-6699

Rep. Stephanie Gricius
sgricius@le.utah.gov
801-901-8251

Rep. Marsha Judkins
mjudkins@le.utah.gov
801-669-6962

Rep. Anthony Loubet
aloubet@le.utah.gov
801-657-0466

Rep. Quinn Kotter
qkotter@le.utah.gov
385-202-6683

Rep. Robert M. Spendlove
rspendlove@le.utah.gov
801-560-5394

Rep. Steve Eliason
seliason@le.utah.gov
801-673-4748

Rep. Tim Jimenez
tjimenez@le.utah.gov
801-560-8061

Rep. Raymond P. Ward
rayward@le.utah.gov
801-440-8765

On Tuesday, March 31, Equality Utah sent an email that included the following misinformation:

“Today is International Transgender Day of Visibility. And being visible literally saves lives. This year, a wave of anti-transgender bills swept across the country. Sadly, the Idaho governor just signed two anti-transgender bills into law. 
​
Here in Utah, the Eagle Forum worked aggressively to push legislation to criminalize transition related healthcare for transgender children. They recruited Representative Brad Daw to carry out their harmful legislation. Thankfully, when Rep. Daw met with transgender children and their parents and doctors, he just couldn’t do it. He listened with an open heart and refused to advance the Eagle Forum’s cruel medical ban.

We are grateful to the courageous advocates who are working to change hearts and minds on Capitol Hill.”
​
Equality Utah referred to “healthcare for transgender children.”  It is incomprehensible to call experimental medical procedures, that hurt and permanently damage children, “healthcare.” These are unproven treatments that use children as guinea pigs.

It is important to know that many organizations including Empowered Families, a coalition of 30 pro-family organizations, along with the Berean Baptist Church and The Compassion Coalition, and Utah Eagle Forum all joined together on this critically important legislation, and worked very hard during the Legislative session to protect children dealing with gender dysphoria (discomfort with one’s biological sex).

These experimental treatments are currently legal in Utah and are seriously harming our children, including:

• Puberty blockers:  Children as young as 9 years old, are taken to adolescent transgender clinics where they are given unproven drugs, usually Lupron, to block puberty.

1. There is not a single long-term study to demonstrate that puberty blockers are safe for gender incongruent youth. This means that the claim that puberty blockers are harmless for gender incongruent youth is a lie.
2. There are also many harmful life-long side effects associated with the use of Lupron. These include premature osteoporosis, seizures, anxiety disorders in young women, obesity and testicular cancer in young men, memory problems in men and women, and when prescribed simultaneously with or followed by cross-sex hormones, permanent sterility in both sexes. The fact that the long-term permanent harm caused by these procedures have not been ruled out by the promoters of treatments means that informed consent is not possible for parents or their children.
3. Puberty blockers used on young boys have been reported to cause the development of their genitalia to be arrested.  By their late teens, it was found that their genitalia were equivalent to that of a 9 year-old boy and that they experienced a loss of sexual sensation. This is a permanent condition. 

​

• Cross-sex hormones: Trans-identified youth next take dangerous cross-sex hormones to try to present as the opposite sex. Young girls are given testosterone and young boys are given estrogen.​​ 

1. This puts youth at an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots, cancer and more across their lifespan. And the best long-term evidence we have among adults shows medical intervention fails to reduce suicide.
2. Most gender-distressed teens are girls and boys who are anxious, depressed, traumatized, struggling with ADHD, autism or other mental illnesses, and are uncomfortable with their bodies and struggling with their identity. Several case reports and series show that the vast majority of teens can embrace their bodies through psychological counseling alone.

 

• Surgery: Top and bottom surgeries are being given to adolescents to change their sexual body parts. Girls as young as 12 years old are being subjected to mastectomies. These surgeries can and often do render children permanently sterile.

Many parents in Utah are taking their children to transgender clinics seeking hormone therapy and surgery for their children to change their sex. This is troublesome because sex cannot be changed. Even with extensive hormonal or cosmetic treatment, affecting the outward appearance of individuals, XX and XY chromosomes will always be XX and XY chromosomes.

​Doctors at Utah clinics, including a clinic at the University of Utah, are administering puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even body-changing surgeries to children. ​

What are these “gender affirming” therapies and what damage are they inflicting on children?
 
Puberty Blockers: Powerful drugs that will prevent children from experiencing puberty. According to the American College of Pediatricians some of the effects of these body altering drugs include:

• Preventing the development of secondary sex characteristics;
• Arresting and decreasing bone growth;
• Preventing the sex-steroid dependent organization and maturation of the adolescent brain; and
• Inhibiting fertility. 

Cross-sex Hormones: Giving young girls testosterone who want to become boys and giving young boys estrogen who want to become girls. What are some the side effects of these drugs?

• Testosterone for girls: their body will redistribute weight, eyes and face will develop a more angular male appearance, a male-sounding voice, facial hair, it will greatly reduce their ability to become pregnant.
• Estrogen for boys: breast development, redistributes their weight, eyes and face develop a more female appearance, body hair will decrease in thickness, they will become permanently and irreversibly sterile. (University of California, San Francisco)
• These drugs can cause heart disease, blood clots, high blood pressure, strokes, etc.

Surgery: Hysterectomy, mastectomy, testicle removal and surgeries that attempt to create male genitalia on females and female genitalia on males which can be non-functional or with limited functionality at best. None of these surgeries are reversible in the sense of regaining full functionality or appearance if these children, or the adults they become, ever change their minds.
 
The doctors are using the children as guinea pigs with untested and unproven drugs. As a result, their bodies are mutilated, and children become sterilized. This terrible practice must be stopped. Right now there are over a HUNDRED children at the GEMS Clinic at the University of Utah receiving these hormone treatments with more children starting the treatment on a regular basis. That means there will be hundreds of sterile and mutilated children by the end of this year.

Representative Brad Daw is the sponsor of “Prohibition on Transgender Procedures Upon Minors” and Senator Curt Bramble is the Senate sponsor. This bill would make all of these procedures illegal for children under 18. Powerful people, who are not thinking of the best interest of Utah’s children, are blocking this bill from passing.  As we have seen many times before, Utahns can be even more powerful than the politicians when they come together and stand for what is right. 
 
We need your help to get this bill to committee and on its way to become the law that will save these children.

This is not a parental rights issue. Parents hold the legal right to care for their children and provide them the healthcare they need but they have never been able to allow their children to be used as guinea pigs. There is never a reason to sterilize or cosmetically alter children, which as a result destroys their God-given right to choose to have children in the future. According to long term studies in Sweden, individuals who have received chemical and surgical gender-affirming operations are 19 times more likely to commit suicide.

The number of children who change their mind is EXTREMELY HIGH. According to the DSM-5 manual, up to 88% of the girls who identify during childhood as boys and up to 97.8%  of the boys who identify as girls change their mind if they do not receive puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgery.  

Please email all the Utah State Representatives and Senators. Call or email the Governor.  Ask them to tell their leadership that they want the opportunity to vote on this bill to save the children.

Senate Roster         House Roster

Please come to the Capitol with us this week to speak with your legislators. It makes a big difference when they know you are there and have a personal interest in the well-being of Utah children.
 For more information please call Maryann Christensen: 801-860-5419

• If you come to the Capitol by car, you will find visitor parking behind the Capitol on the EAST SIDE.  There is a lot right next to the Senate Building that fills up very early, another lot directly north, or parking on the street along the east and north sides of the Capitol Complex.
• If you come to the Capitol by public transportation, take Front Runner or Trax to the NORTH TEMPLE STATION and catch the 200 BUS to the Capitol.  It arrives at the Station every 15 minutes. YOU CAN ALSO PARK YOUR CAR AT THE NORTH TEMPLE STATION (500 W 200 N) and catch the bus!
• You will meet up with us at the south end of the Cafeteria in the Senate Building, which is behind the Capitol on the East.  When you come in from the parking lot, look to the far wall to your left!
• Carola (our volunteer coordinator) or Gabriella (our Intern Director) will greet you when you arrive.

By Richard Saunders

According to a Swedish study, those who have been sickened, maimed and sterilized by transgender treatments need long-term “psychiatric follow-up.” But for young people tempted by transgender hell, it’s illegal in 18 states for them to get psychiatric help beforehand. Will Utah become state number 19?

I see him once or twice a week as I make my daily Front Runner commute to and from work. He has grown out his hair, and he typically wears makeup, a bra and a dress complemented by something no woman would ever wear—men’s boots. And yet, he apparently considers himself, or at least wants to be, a woman.
But a woman he is not, nor ever will be. That is biologically impossible. At best, he will eventually grow out of his gender dysphoria. At worst, he will become a mutilated man who, like an increasing number of people in the “trans community,” will live to regret any life-altering surgery or chemical regimen he undergoes.

He does not need affirmation. He does not need encouragement. He does not need praise. What he needs is compassion and therapy. And yet Rep. Craig Hall and the Utah Psychologist Licensing Board would deny him that help. According to a proposed rule drafted by the licensing board, “unprofessional” psychological conduct could soon include “engaging in or attempting to engage in the practice of sexual-orientation change efforts or gender identity change efforts with a client who is less than 18 years old.” Psychologists violating the rule could lose their license.

In other words, Utah parents would no longer be able to seek therapy for their children suffering from gender dysphoria. According to the licensing board, such therapy can “risk harm” and is “contrary to the ethical principles and standards of our profession; chief among these ethical imperatives is our responsibility to ‘Do No Harm.’”

Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah, said, “We’re confident that if this rule goes forward as drafted, that we will see a reduction of suicides in our state.”

“Do no harm”? “Reduction of suicides”? Keep those phrases in mind as I share some of the sordid facts about today’s agenda-driven transmania. If therapy is not allowed to help children, what is allowed? And at what cost?

An amicus brief currently before the Supreme Court in the case of R. G. and G. R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sheds some light. The brief was filed by a dozen people who at one point identified as transgendered but now affirm their biological sex at birth. Each of them overcame their gender dysphoria with help from therapy. And through therapy, they were able to identify emotional trauma and other root causes that triggered their dysphoria in the first place.

In the brief, Jamie Shupe, who once upon a time was legally recognized as America’s first “nonbinary person,” said, “I should have been treated. Instead, at every step, doctors, judges, and advocacy groups indulged my fiction.”

Added Hacsi Horvath, who identified as a woman for 13 years, “I am far angrier that thousands of young people are being irreversibly altered and sterilized as they are induced into a drug-dependent and medically maimed lifestyle.”

Mere anecdotes? Hardly. Let’s look at the science.

​In one of the most comprehensive studies to date, Swedish researchers who tracked over 300 “sex-reassigned persons” for 30 years discovered just how dangerous playing make-believe has become. When compared with a control group, victims of sex-reassignment surgery were 19 times more likely to die by suicide and were three times more likely to need psychiatric hospitalization, to suffer cardiovascular disease, and to abuse drugs.

“This study,” found at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/, “found substantially higher rates of overall mortality, death from cardiovascular disease and suicide, suicide attempts, and psychiatric hospitalisations in sex-reassigned transsexual individuals compared to a healthy control population. This highlights that post-surgical transsexuals are a risk group that need long-term psychiatric and somatic follow-up.”

In two other studies, one published in 2018 at George Washington University and one published this year in the Netherlands, researchers found that use of cross-sex hormones can substantially increase the risks of heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots (www.ahajournals.org).

The Swedish study concluded that those who have been sickened, maimed and sterilized need long-term “psychiatric follow-up.” But for young people tempted by transgender hell, it’s illegal in 18 states for them to get psychiatric help beforehand.

And so, misogynistic surgical predators are performing double mastectomies on gender dysphoric girls as young as 13 and 14. In Oregon, you can get a taxpayer funded “sex-change surgery” at age 15—no parental notification required. And in England, the ironically named National Health Service is giving transgender treatments to three-year-olds caught playing dress-up.

According to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, 80–95 percent of gender-dysphoric children will accept their physical biology if they are allowed to pass through puberty without transgender treatments, which is more like with therapy. A study by two psychiatric experts affiliated with Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has found that “the hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex—that a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’—is not supported by scientific evidence.” They also found that “only a minority of children who experience cross-gender identification will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood” (www.thenewatlantis.com).

Sadly, by the time many confused young people reach adulthood, they will have been irreparably injured. What was that about “do no harm”?

Deny a child professional therapy and put that child on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and the trans identity can become fixed. Unfortunately, the only therapy many children are getting is the propaganda they find on the internet.

Last year, a Brown University study by professor Lisa Littman found that identity politics is fueling a “social contagion” outbreak of transgender identification. Brown University took heat for the study’s publication, but a parent and research-driven petition stands by the study. It states: “The parental reports in this study offer important and much-needed preliminary information about a cohort of adolescents, mostly girls, who with no prior history of dysphoria are requesting irreversible medical interventions, including the potential to impair fertility and future sexual function. In any other group of children, these grave consequences would be seen as human rights violations unless there was significant and overwhelming evidence these procedures would be beneficial long-term.”

We shouldn’t be surprised that “parents describe a process of immersion in social media, such as binge-watching YouTube transition videos and excessive use of Tumblr, immediately preceding their child becoming gender dysphoric” (thefederalist.com).

Watch enough propaganda-filled YouTube videos, and you’ll be convinced you’re an L or a G or a B or a T—or all of the above. Watch a few more videos, and you might be convinced you’re a space alien. Social contagion is the internet’s own brand of conversion therapy—legal in all 50 states.

But there’s hope despite destructive social media mythology, activist witch doctors masquerading as psychologists and surgeons, and the nation’s headlong rush into insanity. Hundreds of transgendered young people in their mid-20s are detransitioning. Soon they will number in the thousands as more and more discover that they’ve been sold an ideological pack of lies.

Of those who would offend “one of these little ones,” Jesus said, “it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). As I watch the science-denying child abuse that is occurring in Utah and other states in the name of “do no harm,” it becomes clear just who Jesus was talking about.

Please help us now to stop the State of Utah from passing a rule that would ban legitimate and necessary talk therapy when therapists are counseling with children under 18 who are questioning their gender or sexual orientation. 

Sign the attached petition and ask the Licensing Boards to Protect All Teens by rejecting the language proposed by the Board of Psychologists and find new language that protects client self-determination of all teens and their families.  https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ask-dopl-to-protect-all-utah-teens

The proposed rule is based on the premise that ordinary ethical conversational therapy that is open to change in sexual attractions or gender perceptions is harmful to minors. 
​In the 2019 legislative session there was a bill to ban conversion therapy. The question was, what is the definition of conversion therapy? This legislation stated,” Conversion Therapy means:

• any practice or treatment that seeks to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of a patient or client, including:
• mental health therapy that seeks to
• change,
• eliminate, or
• reduce behaviors,
• expressions, attractions, or
• feelings related to a patient or client's sexual orientation or gender identity.”

This proposed language that would have infringe on the rights of parents, children and professional therapists by allowing only gay affirming help with same sex attraction or affirming the gender identity being questioned. A therapist could have validated a homosexual lifestyle but could not suggest other options.  Parents looking for help for their questioning child would not have any place to go for help.
THIS BILL DID NOT PASS THE LEGISLATURE. BUT THE UTAH MENTAL HEALTH LICENSING BOARD HAS PROPOSED A CHANGE TO THEIR RULE THAT WOULD BAN CONVERSION THERAPY, INCLUDING TALK THERAPY. THIS RULE CHANGE WILL HAVE THE SAME END EFFECT AS THE LAW THAT WAS REJECTED BY THE LEGISLATURE. THIS IS JUST ANOTHER WAY TO GET AROUND THE LEGISLATURE AND BAN TALK THERAPY FOR QUESTIONING LGBTQ YOUTH.

If this proposed rule is adopted it will have the same effect as the law they tried to pass in the legislature and would violate:

• Free speech for professional therapist.
• Parental rights.
• Patience’s rights
• Constitutional rights
• Religious Freedom

Children struggling with their gender identity or sexuality need to be able to talk to a professional counselor who will give them honest answers to their questions and parents need to be able to trust that these therapists will do what is best for their child and not be controlled by unreasonable and biased laws that violate their constitutional rights.

Your help is needed ASAP. Please do the following 3 things:

1. Sign the attached petition and ask the Licensing Boards to Protect All Teens by rejecting the language proposed by the Board of Psychologists and find new language that protects client self-determination of all teens and their families.https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ask-dopl-to-protect-all-utah-teens
2. Take time to write one or two paragraphs asking the Licensing Board to reject the language proposed by the Board of Psychologists.Send your comments to: Psychologist licensing Act Rule Filed: 08/15/2019   Closes: 10/01/2019 Contact: Larry Marx  |  lmarx@utah.gov 
3. Come to the hearing on September 26 to testify against the proposed rule. We need to get as many people at the hearing as we possibly can.                                                                                                                                      We have attached a 4 point brief from David Pruden. It will help you better understand the issue and give you important information to help with your comments to the Licensing Board.

From David Pruden:
1.      The proposed rule is unnecessarily vague and open to administrative abuse.

​For example, what constitutes therapy that is “neutral with respect to the sexual orientation . . . of the individual.”  (The question is not whether the therapist is neutral; it is whether the therapy—the “methods, practices, procedures, or techniques”—is neutral.)  What constitutes “neutral” therapy most probably will depend on the “worldview” regarding same-sex attractions or sexual orientation held by whoever decides what the term “neutral” means. 

Imagine that a psychologist is working with an adolescent who is experiencing gender confusion and is thinking seriously about whether he wants to undergo gender “change” procedures.  In the course of their discussions, the psychologist should address with the minor client (and his parents) the emotional and psychological risks and hazards of “gender change” procedures.  Further, the psychologist should advise the minor client and his parents that they will need to discuss the medical and physical risks of chemical, hormonal, or surgical “gender change” procedures—which are many and serious, and often with permanent and irreversible effects—with a competent physician.  However, such discussions in a therapeutic context may well be regarded as having the “goal” of changing the minor client’s “gender identity.” 

Assume a situation in which a 10-year-old male tells his parents that he thinks he really should have been born as a girl, and wants to change his gender.  The parents then take the boy to a therapist (who does not take a transgender/gender-change-affirming approach) to help him address his feelings and confusion.  Under the proposed rule, addressing the feelings, emotions, or expressions related to the boy’s perceived gender “identity” would put the therapist at risk, because it might result in a change in those feelings, and thus potentially be regarded as having the “goal” of changing the boy’s “gender identity.”  To remain safe, the therapist could only “reduce” the young boy’s “internalized stigma,” provide “acceptance [and] support,” facilitate his “active coping, social support, and identity exploration and development,” and assist him in “undergoing gender transition.”

2.      The proposed rule threatens a therapist with loss of their license (and their livelihood) if they violate the “sexual orientation change efforts or gender identity change efforts” provision if they are working with any number of common adolescent sexual concerns.

The likely practical result of the proposed rule would be to:

1. Make it more difficult to effectively address trauma resulting from sexual abuse.
2. Make it more difficult to address compulsive sexual behaviors.
3. Prevent psychologists from addressing with minor clients feelings or emotions (e.g. depression or anxiety) related to gender confusion or the risks of gender “change” procedures.
4. Impede minor clients’ ability to achieve their own self-determined goals.
5. When religious or personal values are in conflict with sexual or gender feelings of the client therapists would be limited in their range of options to effectively help minors and thus potentially increase the risk of suicide in minors. 

3.      The proposed rule is based on the premise that ordinary ethical conversational therapy that is open to change in sexual attractions or gender perceptions is harmful to minors because it does not work and cannot work. 

The proposed rule is grounded in a misunderstanding or mischaracterization of what actually does—and does not—happen in counseling by an ethical, competent therapist who uses an approach that is open to change.  Ethical and competent therapy does not involve physically aversive techniques (such as electroshocking genitals or inducing vomiting).  No licensed therapist in Utah has used such techniques for decades, as the proposed rule’s supporters concede.  Nor does ethical and competent therapy involve verbally abusive techniques such as bullying, intimidation, shaming, or humiliation.  Contrary to the impression the activists who support the proposed rule want people to have, the proposed rule is not directed either exclusively or even primarily at physically aversive practices.

4.      The proposed rule, in its operation, would not be neutral toward religion. 

It is based on an implicit hostility to the religious principles of clients (of all religious backgrounds) who seek therapy to address unwanted same-sex attractions or to resolve gender dysphoria, and would make it more difficult for those clients to obtain professional assistance in living according to their faith and religious convictions. The proposed rule further would exert forceful legal pressure on therapists of faith to either provide therapy that is contrary to their religious convictions or to remain silent. The proposed rule could be regarded as neutral only if the State could demonstrate as a matter of scientific fact that same-sex attractions (or gender perception or gender confusion contrary to physiology) are immutable. The proposed rule implicitly presupposes the illegitimacy of religious beliefs that do not accept that proposition, that view same-sex sexual activity as immoral, or that reject transgenderism or gender-change procedures.

National Eagle Forum Capitol Hill Report 
August 29, 2019
​
So far, in the House of Representatives, the 116th Congress has been a term of extending freedoms to some at the expense of others. We’ve seen bills, committee hearings, and floor speeches promulgating the Left’s talking-point demanding that our laws affirm a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI).

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), H.R. 1585, was one of the House’s first successful attempts at including SOGI language in a piece of legislation. SOGI language in VAWA has been interpreted to allow biological males who identify as a woman to enter into biologically female only places, not only violating the privacy, but also sometimes the safety of women seeking shelter.

On top of this, the House’s passage of the Equality Act, H.R. 5, has also been celebrated by liberals and main-stream culture. Proponents of this legislation believe it is a landmark win for the LGBTQ community that gives them the protections from discrimination they deserve by making SOGI protected classes under federal civil rights laws. 
 
Most recently, the House unanimously passed the PRIDE Act, which allows same-sex couples to receive tax benefits that were previously awarded only to traditionally married couples, a husband and wife, by nullifying the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). It does so by modifying the tax code to allow same-sex couples to receive retroactive tax refunds from years prior to the 2013 Supreme Court decision striking down DOMA in U.S. v. Windsor.
 
These three pieces of legislation are dangerous because they undermine the United States Constitution. Our Constitution already grants all people equality under the law, especially through the 14th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972. Furthermore, by not including any conscience protections in VAWA and the Equality Act, and providing retroactive benefits in the PRIDE Act, all three pieces of legislation extend special protections and privileges for only LGBTQ people at the detriment of Americans who oppose their lifestyle, like Jack Phillips, the owner of a bakery repeatedly targeted for his refusal to bend his conscience and the Downtown Hope Center, which refused to allow a transgender female into their women’s only shelter.
 
It is more important than ever to continue telling Washington, especially the Senate who has yet to vote on these pieces of legislation, of your disapproval of these harmful policies. Eagle Forum will continue to fight the assault on our Constitutional rights.