As we enter yet another legislative week with the US House in recess, we are hearing increasing rumblings that liberals will use the next Coronavirus supplemental as a vehicle to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Liberals are asking for at least $413 million to go towards preventing sexual assault and domestic violence and in the House, a similar letter was sent to Leadership asking for a renewal of VAWA programs.
If legislators are serious about preventing domestic violence, they should be focused on getting the country back to work and removing onerous restrictions on citizens’ movement. Studies have shown that confining policies like shelter in place orders lead to increases in domestic violence. And, state and local governments’ limitation on mobility and gathering are leaving victims without access to shelters and are increasing personal turmoil, like job loss and depression, that often lead to violence.
We are concerned about all hastily-passed legislation railroaded through Congress under the excuse of an ongoing national emergency. If legislators want to reauthorize VAWA, it must be thoughtfully considered by both Chambers.
While Eagle Forum wants to stop domestic violence of any kind, we oppose Congress’ using the American people’s fear surrounding the COVID-19 virus to jam through a renewal of VAWA, which is feminist pork that has proven to be ineffective at stopping domestic violence.
Additionally, it is ironic and hypocritical that liberals are demanding passage of the long-dead Equal Rights Amendment, which would render sex-discriminatory legislation like VAWA, unconstitutional, and out of the other side of their mouths are demanding that VAWA be railroaded through Congress without debate in both Houses.
Eagle Forum founder, Phyllis Schlafly correctly pointed out:
“For 30 years, the feminists have been pretending that their goal is to abolish all sex discrimination, eliminating all gender differences no matter how reasonable. When it comes to domestic violence, however, feminist dogma preaches that there is an innate gender difference: men are naturally batterers and women are naturally victims (i.e., gender profiling).
Starting with its title, VAWA is just about as sex discriminatory as legislation can get. It is written and implemented to oppose the abuse of women and to punish men.
Ignoring the mountain of evidence that women initiate physical violence nearly as often as men, VAWA has more than 60 passages in its lengthy text that exclude men from its benefits. For starters, the law’s title should be changed to the Partner Violence Reduction Act, and the words “and men” should be added to those 60 sections.”
To add to this, the VAWA legislation that passed the US House in 2019 was full of Democratic idealism that had nothing to do with protecting women. Among its flaws, H.R. 1585 made it illegal for a person convicted of a misdemeanor stalking crime or under a protection order to own a gun and it affirmed that Americans identifying as LGBTQ need special protections under the law. With this in mind, the Senate must be wary of using Coronavirus as a means of VAWA passage. Since the debate began on this supplemental, Democrats insisted that the legislation must have certain wins in it. For these reasons, we ask your help in contacting your Senator to ask them to reject a VAWA reauthorization in the COVID-19 supplemental or any other vehicle.