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June 22, 2021 (Family Research Council) – The Department of Veterans Affairs hasn't wasted this many taxpayer dollars since the Obama administration. On Saturday, Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough announced the VA would start the regulatory ball rolling on conducting transgender surgeries for veterans in their taxpayer-funded hospitals. The announcement was an early Father's Day gift for the transgender lobby – although they probably are working to have the holiday renamed Happy Care-giver 1 or 2 Day.
It was only a matter of time before the Left's social experimentation in the military spilled over to other agencies. In the waning months of the Obama administration, LGBT activists in the military overturned longstanding policies to not only welcome people struggling with gender dysphoria, but also to pay for their reassignment procedures – wasting taxpayer dollars and compromising America's military readiness in response. President Trump reversed the Obama administration's decision, but President Biden has both reinstated Obama's policy in the military and directed the VA to follow suit with this redirection of limited resources from vital services.
The Biden administration has weaponized the VA to advance its “radical, extreme agenda,” Representative Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) said on “Washington Watch.” In addition to gender reassignment, the VA is also considering financing abortions. Rosendale led 137 Republican members of Congress in urging VA Secretary McDonough against funding abortions for veterans at taxpayer expense. “It's just stunning and frightening for the party that proclaims their belief in science” to toss science overboard, said Rosendale.
Although the Biden administration is proudly waving a metaphorical rainbow flag over the VA, they are less proud about how much the plan will cost. Even the Washington Post's puff piece on the announcement admitted, “the cost to VA is unknown.” They tried to soften that admission by claiming, “it's estimated that fewer than 4,000 veterans would be interested in this surgery.” No one knows who concocted that number – or how. The paper that 50 years ago brought you Watergate now can't even bring you a source for made-up numbers.
Back in 2016, FRC pieced together an estimate of what the military would pay to cover gender reassignment surgeries – far higher than the Washington Post's spin. At the time, there were an estimated 8,800 active-duty military personnel with gender dysphoria, of which nearly 7,000 would desire surgery if all expenses were covered, according to our estimate. Today, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality, there are more than 15,000 people in the military who identify as transgender, and more than 134,000 who are veterans.
The so-called 'Equality Act' contains deadly poison for Christian democracy in the United States. And, its harmless-sounding name tries to hide this insidious reality.
But, unfortunately, Pelosi and company have JUST PASSED this morally repugnant bill in the US House of Representatives.
Pro-life and pro-family organizations, as well as Christian churches and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and freedom-loving groups everywhere, are now sounding the alarm.
Wake up, America, this is RED ALERT time!
This petition, therefore, calls on every US Senator to vigorously oppose and reject this bill.
Yes, it's THAT important.
The bill has nothing to do with "equality," or with extending the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which is how it is being touted by the leftists in the mainstream media.
It is, rather, one of the MOST EXTREME anti-life, pro-LGBT indoctrination bills ever proposed.
It has been described as a short-list of the worst possible elements of the Radical Left's agenda in Congress...and, REMEMBER, it has just passed the House!
We need to tell all US Senators, in no uncertain terms, that WE WILL NOT ACCEPT this outrageous attack on our freedoms and on life, itself!
SIGN AND SHARE THIS URGENT PETITION, TODAY!
And, after you have signed this petition, please CLICK HERE to DIRECTLY CONTACT YOUR U.S. SENATORS, and tell them to oppose this assault on our freedoms of thought, speech, conscience and religion.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Below are some of the devastating critiques of 'Equality Act,' leveled by some of the best conservative, Christian minds in the country.
ON LIFE:
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC), has written that the 'Equality Act' will include, "the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion this country has ever seen.”
"Under this big new umbrella of 'discrimination,'" continued Perkins, "any American who doesn’t want to fund, offer, perform, or participate in abortion on demand will have no real choice. They can conform — or they can be punished."
"Every wall that’s been built between abortion and the government would come crashing down, including the Hyde Amendment, the pro-conscience Weldon Amendment, and several international barriers that keep our country from exporting abortion."
ON CHRISTIANITY, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM and LGBT INDOCTRINATION:
Lloyd Marcus, of the American Thinker publication, has written about the 'Equality Act' in the following terms:
"LGBTQ enforcer and homosexual Democrat congressman David Cicilline is sponsor of the Equality Act. Cicilline's evil bill is the most aggressive assault on our constitutional religious liberties in U.S. history...If the Equality Act becomes the law of the land, every outrageous, tyrannical demand [of LGBTQ activists/enforcers] will become reality."
And, Liberty Counsel Action, a law and policy education, training and advocacy organization which, among other things, advances religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and the family has extensively criticized the 'Equality Act'.
On their webpage, dedicated to analyzing the 'Equality Act', which you can access below, Liberty Counsel Action state: "The 'Equality' Act' elevates 'sexual orientation and gender identity' to the same protected category as race. It will violate the religious freedom of Americans in numerous ways."
The go on to list the areas of life which this will affect: "It will impact all employers, including religious and non-profit organizations; contractors; houses of worship; public, private, and religious schools; curriculum; bathrooms; sports; daycare providers; shelters; hospitals; places of gatherings; entertainment providers; counselors; foster care and adoption; biological parents; landlords; anywhere providing a “good, service, or program,” including those advertised online; transportation drivers; and all local, state, and federal entities and many other areas."
And, as they note: "[T]here is NO RELIGIOUS EXEMPTION to this bill!"
Taking into account all of these potential threats to Christian democracy, Life and religious freedom, it is easy to see how the so-called 'Equality Act' has been called a "poison pill."
It is imperative that the US Senate vigorously reject this bill, AND EXPOSE IT FOR WHAT IT REALLY IS.
Please SIGN this urgent petition, TODAY!
The following links will take you to more information about the 'Equality Act'
The House version of the so-called 'Equality Act' (HR 5): http://lc.org/PDFs/Attachments2PRsLAs/2019/031819EqualityActHR5.pdf
Liberty Counsel Action's full analysis of the so-called 'Equality Act': https://www.lcaction.org/HR5 and https://lc.org/newsroom/details/022421-equality-act-guts-religious-freedom-1
LifeSiteNews opinion and analysis of the so-called 'Equality Act':
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-us-house-passes-pro-abortion-equality-act
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/biden-names-pro-lgbt-equality-act-as-top-priority-if-elected
Each procedure carries a hefty price tag. Five years ago, FRC found “a comprehensive package of male-to-female surgical procedures would cost $110,450, and female-to-male procedures would cost $89,050.” In 2016, the military would have borne a cost of $746.6 million for surgeries alone, and an additional $969.2 million over the next nine years in monthly hormone treatments (which must be taken indefinitely even after surgery), totaling over $1.7 billion over 10 years.
If the VA successfully moves to cover gender reassignment surgery, taxpayers would be forced to cover the expenses of an estimated 15 times as many people with gender dysphoria who might choose to seek and receive surgery for free. Factor in the 12.2 percent cumulative inflation since 2016, and the cost to taxpayers approaches $30 billion over 10 years, or 12 percent of the VA's budget for fiscal year 2021.
We already know who's on the hook for this: you are, along with the veterans who may not get life-saving treatment so that the Left can march their radical agenda forward. The Left defends gender reassignment surgery as health care, but it isn't health care. It destroys or removes healthy organs, permanently marring men and women created in God's image in a way many will – and have – come to regret.
Published with permission from the Family Research Council.