In November the Federal taxpayers will finance a free trip to Houston for several thousand women in order to attend a conference directed by the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year. Most of the delegates were elected in state conferences held during May, June and July in each of the states, and some 400 additional delegates will be selected directly by the National Commission.
The Chairperson of the Commission is former Congresswoman Bella Abzug. Members include Gloria Steinem and the chairpersons of the National Organization for Women, the Women’s Political Caucus, and the National Gay Task Force. Congress appropriated $5 million to finance these conferences.
The principal business of the Houston conference will be to pass resolutions which purport to represent women’s views about various issues. The national resolutions will presumably be a synthesis of the resolutions passed in the state conferences, which often ran to as many as 40 pages, single-spaced.
It would be instructive for taxpayers to read and evaluate these resolutions to see how our money is being spent — and may be spent in the future if the resolutions become a reality. Those passed in the Illinois state conference are typical of most of the states, so let’s look at the Illinois resolutions.
The IWY supports homosexual privileges of an even broader scope than were decisively defeated in the much-publicized Dade County, Florida referendum.
The IWY demands that “all states and the Federal Government, both legislative and executive branches, … prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation particularly in employment, housing, public accommodation, and education,” and in addition that laws be passed “to insure that sexual orientation not be a factor in determining child custody or visitation rights … [or] a person’s right to be a foster parent, to be a big sister or a big brother, or to be an adoptive parent.”
Another series of IWY resolutions calls for the extension of abortion by Federal funding “to provide abortion services under Title XIX (Medicaid) of the Social Security Act,” and to “require all health institutions receiving tax-generated revenues to offer … abortion.”
Under the IWY resolutions, child care would become a function of the Federal Government. The IWY demands “Federally-funded, comprehensive, day-care programs” and that “the Federal Government should assume a major role in funding universal voluntary child development programs.”
Another series of IWY resolutions demands “stronger enforcement of affirmative action guidelines, including specific hiring goals for women…” In order to intensify reverse discrimination on behalf of women, the IWY demands that both Federal and state governments hire “women’s advocates … as cabinet level positions with permanent staff and adequate funding.”
Most of the IWY resolutions call for more Federal control and spending. In the brave new world designed by the Commission on International Women’s Year, Big Brother (or Big Sister) in Washington is relied on to solve most of our problems.
The IWY resolutions demand a mandatory reduction in the work week from 40 to 35 hours “with no cut in pay.” The IWY demands that “(1) the military budget be reduced, particularly the nuclear weapons programs including the B-1, and that (2) these monies be transferred to programs which will further women’s equality.”
There is much, much more for which there is no space here. A study of the IWY resolutions passed in most of the states, and scheduled to be approved in Houston in November prove that the keynote speaker at the IWY conference in Colorado did not exaggerate when she said: “This is the only revolution in history financed by the Federal Government.”
