By Mark Anderson
Proposed new House rules issued by Rules Committee Chairman James Mc-Govern (D-Mass.) call for establishing a Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth that wouldn’t just address economic and social “inequities” on the basis of “race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, or national origin.” Rather, this rules manifesto would go so far as to “honor all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral; [and] make permanent the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to facilitate a diverse workforce that is reflective of our members and [those] they represent.”
But to honor some, others must be dishonored, as Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.) explained when he released the following statement Jan. 4, right after the House promptly adopted rules to eliminate from the lower chamber’s deliberations words we in the Western world have been using for centuries to describe our familial relations and gender.
“One of the first actions taken by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives,” Grothman noted, “was to eliminate the words father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half-brother, half-sister, grandson, and granddaughter.” Rep. Grothman added:
Up to this point, the plot to eradicate the traditional family has been reserved for the fringe left-wing. But now, a majority of Americans have voted for a party that wants to fundamentally change our country and wants a world in which you cannot call your parents mom and dad. I don’t think this represents the true feelings of most Americans and, if they knew they sent representatives to Washington who have blacklisted the words “mother” and “father,” they would be appalled.
Abigail Shrier, writing in the New York Post, would sharply disagree with Grothman’s additional claim that this reality-twisting development is largely “symbolic.” She wrote:
“Mother” is a fundamental biological, emotional, familial reality. It captures the irreplaceable bond between a baby and the woman who bore her in her womb. . . . House Democrats don’t pretend to seek this change merely for the sake of “streamlining” congressional language. . . . Pelosi & Co. are desperate to accommodate an aggressive gender ideology that insists “man” and “woman” are fuzzy, subjective categories, rather than biological ones.
Ms. Shrier added:
By pressing for these changes across the country, they have allowed biological boys into sports competition with biological girls, peeling back Title IX protections for women’s sports. If “mother” is now a useless concept under House rules, why shouldn’t it pose an equally offensive presence in federal law? That’s where we’re headed, isn’t it? Erasing “mothers,” and “women,” because the concepts are insufficiently inclusive to gender ideologues. The rights women struggled to win become undone, paradoxically, in the name of inclusion.
‘EQUALITY’ & MUCH ELSE
These new House rules, blessed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), represent a general framework for the overall Democratic legislative agenda. Their “future-focused proposals,” according to their news release, “reflect our priorities as a caucus and as a country.” The Democrats vow they will “crush the coronavirus,” while also valiantly “addressing economic disparity, combating the climate crisis, advancing inclusion,” and “promoting integrity in government.”
In short, they are going to save the planet, make everybody rich, and, somehow, suddenly, after all these years of both parties doing the opposite, inject ethics and morals back into government. On a somewhat more sensible note, the Dems do pledge there will be an improved effort “to protect whistleblowers.”
Mark Anderson is AFP’s roving editor. Email him at [email protected].
