WSJ: New York's Dangerous Amendment

Good morning. We want to make sure you saw this editorial in the Wall Street Journal regarding Prop 1:

New York’s Dangerous Amendment

Prop 1 on the November Ballot would Impose Progressive Intolerance

By the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board

When the government gets in the business of making new rights, it pays to look out for the ones you already have. New York Democrats are pushing a November ballot measure, known as Prop. 1, to create new protected classes in the state constitution. The amendment is an attempt to drive Democratic turnout, and it’s a threat to other freedoms.

The New York constitution forbids discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed or religion. Prop. 1 adds “sex” to the list and says the term includes “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” The amendment would also ban discrimination based on age, national origin, ethnicity, and disability.

There’s no real need for these additions. A New York civil-rights law and a sweeping human rights law already ban discrimination based on sex, gender identity, age, disability, and most of these other characteristics in employment, public accommodations, housing, and non-sectarian schools. As for “reproductive autonomy,” state law has codified Roe v. Wade, allowing abortion through the third trimester with a doctor’s approval.

Democrats are pushing the amendment for political reasons, scaring women about their abortion access to drive turnout in House races. The Legislature introduced the amendment in 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned Roe and could have put it to voters last year if the issue were so urgent, as they did other ballot measures. Instead, lawmakers held it for a major election year.

But by enshrining these protections in the constitution, the amendment heightens the danger to other rights. If a man identifies as a woman and prefers to use a women’s locker room, bathroom, sports team, or prison facility, does the amendment guarantee his right—at the expense of women’s safety?

Will parents who don’t wish their child to “transition” from one gender to another have a right to stop it, or even be informed by a school what’s going on? Would conscience objections to transgender procedures or abortion be harder to defend? Expect lawsuits from all sides if Prop. 1 passes.

Litigation over President Biden’s Title IX rule illustrates the stakes. Half the states have sued over the rule’s protection for “gender identity” from discrimination in schools because of the threats to women’s safety and free speech. Nassau County in Long Island is already being sued by the New York Attorney General for a local law banning transgender men from women’s sports, and this amendment could strengthen the state’s position.

One other Prop. 1 alarm: It provides that “nothing in this section shall invalidate or prevent the adoption of any law, regulation, program, or practice that is designed to prevent or dismantle discrimination.” The Legislature said this line “protects the validity of efforts to prevent or dismantle structural forms of inequality.” This sounds like a cover for programs like the slavery reparations commission the state launched this year, or other racial preferences. Cornell law professor William Jacobson warned in April that this language could “create a DEI exception to the anti-discrimination laws.”

Nevada is the only other state with an “equal rights amendment” that is so expansive; it passed in 2022. New York Democrats want to lead a tide of blue states showing off their inclusiveness. But what they’re really doing is seeking to impose progressive cultural values and intolerance on 19.6 million New Yorkers.

From WSJ.com