I’m confused about the very existence of a bill called the Violence Against Women Act. I’m as much opposed to violence against women as I am to violence against anyone else, which is kind of the point.
Related: Is a Senator Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
There are three possibilities for a bill with a name like this:
- It provides more protection for women than for men.
- It provides less protection for women than for men.
- It provides the same amount of protection for women as for men.
In the first two cases, it clearly violates the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says that every person is entitled to equal protection of the law.
In the third case, it is clearly covered by the 14th Amendment, which already says that men and women are entitled to equal protection of the law.
The only way a bill like this makes sense is if it’s based on the assumption that women are not included in the ‘persons’ protected by the 14th Amendment.
So if it’s really about protecting women, it’s either unconstitutional or unnecessary. And if it’s really about protecting people, the title needs to be changed to reflect that, and any mention of sex either way needs to be removed. Which would make it the Violence Against People Act.
Which would then raise the question: Is there any kind of violence against people that isn’t already illegal? With the federal and state legislatures enacting thousands of bills every year for hundreds of years, that hardly seems possible.
Doesn’t it seem like a terrible waste of time for Congress to even consider a bill like this when it could instead be doing the important and urgent work of dismantling the racist legacies of racist presidents?
