Verbal Testimony in Opposition to the ERA (SF473) Delivered by Maggee Hangge, Minnesota Catholic Conference

Chair Latz and Members,

My name is Maggee Hangge from the Minnesota Catholic Conference.

The Catholic Church opposes and forcefully rejects unjust discrimination in all its forms, such as racism, sexism, and ableism. Discrimination is the exclusion of people from the social, political and economic life of society based on some personal trait or characteristic.

In our work as the largest nongovernmental provider of educational, charitable, and healthcare services, locally, nationally, and internationally, we seek to ameliorate discrimination by serving those in need—not because they are Catholic, but because we are.

Discrimination on a wide variety of classifications is already banned under the federal and state constitutions, as well as state and federal statutes, such as the Minnesota Human Rights Act.

So why do we need this ERA? We do not.

The purpose of the ERA is the coercive imposition of the most discredited, harmful and unscientific ideologies of sexual politics via the executive and judicial branches, and it encourages the punishment of those who dissent. It’s an end run around the legislative process for policies that are politically untenable.

First, it strengthens constitutional protections for abortion and assisted reproduction, will require state funding of both, and makes it difficult, if not almost impossible, to put legislative limits on these practices.

Second, it imposes discredited gender ideology that, among other things, will likely require public funding of various accommodations, could lead to the punishment of those who, for example misgender people, and will make sex-specific spaces and programming illegal such as in public shelters, prisons, and women’s sports. In other words, it threatens free speech and the right to safety in one’s body and one’s person.

Finally, by not providing protection against religious discrimination, it will leave vulnerable those who oppose these harmful ideologies and understandings of the person and sexuality, as well as unpopular religious minorities.

The ERA is the erosion of rights amendment for women and people of faith.

The ways in which this amendment will be abused will depend on the creativity of state officials, who, under the color of nondiscrimination principles, will impose policies that they believe will eliminate the effects of discrimination regardless of intent, including the exclusion in licensing, public contracts, and state funding of those who hold traditional views on human sexuality.

Its main purpose is to be a sword against those who oppose the Sexual Revolution, not to shield people from unjust discrimination.

Not every distinction is discrimination, and biology is not bigotry.

Please oppose this unnecessary and harmful amendment.