With the strike of the gavel next Wednesday, January 8, the Virginia General Assembly will open its 2020 legislative session. You can count on Concerned Women for America (CWA) of Virginia to represent your interests in Richmond and to keep you informed on the legislation that directly impacts you and your family.

To kick off the session, CWA of Virginia is co-sponsoring the Celebrate Womanhood, Do Not ERAse It! rally/lobby day to oppose the efforts to pass the Equal Right Amendment (ERA) that was defeated last year. I will be joining several of CWA’s national staff, including CWA’s Young Women for America National Director, Kelsey Good.

Click here for CWA’s ERA talking points.

Help us show “strength in numbers” by attending the rally and lobbying our state legislators! If you live in the Northern Virginia area, we are providing bus transportation to Richmond for the rally and lobby day. Please email me today to reserve your spot on the bus! The bus leaves CWA Headquarters in Alexandria promptly at 6:00 a.m. and returns following the speaker forum that ends at 4:00 p.m. Estimated arrival time back at CWA Headquarters is 6:00 p.m. Additional pick-ups and drop-offs are dependent upon attendance. More details on that to follow in the coming days. We would love to have you join us!

Here are the details:
Date/Time/Location: Wednesday, January 8 from 9:00 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. and 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. in Richmond (State Capitol). 

Schedule:
The day begins at the Family Foundation Headquarters
707 East Franklin Street, Richmond, VA 23219

8:15 a.m. – Registration opens
9:00 a.m. – Welcome, instructions on how to talk to legislators and talking points distributed.
9:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. -Talk to your delegate at the State Capitol. Click here to find your senator and delegate.
11:00 a.m. – ERA Press Conference
11:45 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Lunch on your own
2:00 p.m. – Speaker Forum

Registration is required. Please RSVP TODAY by clicking here. 

Please take action! Whether you are able to come to Richmond or not, we need everyone to do the following to stop this horrendous amendment.

1. Virginians must step up NOW to stop this very dangerous amendment. Please contact your senator and delegate and urge them not to support any effort to resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment. Click here to find your state legislators and their contact information. Be sure to let them know that you are a member of Concerned Women for America of Virginia.
2. Forward this alert on to others. Encourage them to both pray and act immediately.

Pray!  Concerned Women for America, Founder, and former Chairman of the Board of Directors, Beverly LaHaye, one of the most important pioneers of the conservative feminist movement, founded CWA in 1979 because she believed that women needed voices in the public sphere that represented their beliefs and values.  It was the 1975 Equal Rights Amendment that gave Mrs. LaHaye motivation to begin the mission of CWA, as it remains today, to protect and promote Biblical values among all citizens – first through prayer, then education, and finally by influencing our society – thereby reversing the decline in moral values in our nation.

Thank God for the ways He chooses to use our lives and our voices for His glory, to protect and promote His ways.  Thank God for Mrs. LaHaye and her obedience to lead others to promote Biblical values in our culture.

“For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”  Esther 4:14

Thank you in advance for your diligence through both your prayers and actions.

Toni DeLancey
State Director

Don’t ERAse Women With an Equal Rights Amendment 

 “… legal classifications and distinctions based upon sex are not only discriminatory in themselves,  but also lend governmental support to entrenched customs which ignore women as persons …” Pauli Murray, co-founder of the National Organization of Women

The ERA proposes that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” and that “Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

The idea of equal rights sounds great, so why is the ERA so wrong for women?

#1 The ERA could erase women’s progress

Adding an equality amendment based on “sex” can have a reverse effect on women’s progress—the legal gains, programs, and policy reforms aimed specifically at benefiting women could be challenged and taken away such as: provisions in the Violence Against Women Act; programs such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); special protections in marriage, divorce, alimony and child custody; accommodations for pregnant women in the workforce; spousal social security benefits; female protections on college campuses relating to safety, Title IX, scholarships and admissions.

#2 The ERA could erase legal distinctions based on sex and leave women unprotected

Adding an equality amendment based on “sex” allows federal courts and legislatures new powers to reinterpret every law making a distinction based on gender.

• Any limits on abortion or denying taxpayer-funds for abortion could be seen as a form of sex discrimination and a violation of this amendment.
• Women-only safe spaces like sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, or domestic violence shelters could be seen as a form of sex discrimination and violation of this amendment.
• Women could be forced into military service, instead of this being a woman’s choice.
• Current legislative trends to neutralize the unique differences of males and females in policy and law (and redefine “sex” as “gender identity”) could be supported by this amendment.

#3 We don’t need the ERA: Women are already equal under U.S. law

Women’s “equality of rights under the law” is already recognized in our Constitution. Amendment 14 states “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor … deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor … the equal protection of the laws.

#4 We don’t need the ERA: Women will continue to use established law to make progress

Through established law such as Amendment 14, Title IX, Equal Opportunity Act of 1963, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and Equal Pay Act, women have made huge strides against institutional discrimination against women in education, employment, sports, politics, and many other aspects of society. Where other inequalities may exist, women will continue to use established law.

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