The Equal Rights Amendment's surprise comeback, explained

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: June 1, 2018 at 10:41:21 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The Equal Rights Amendment's surprise comeback, explained
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> The Equal Rights Amendment’s surprise comeback, explained
> If one more state ratifies the Equal Rights Amendment, it could make it into the Constitution — maybe.
> By Emily Stewart
> May 31 2018
> <https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/31/17414630/equal-rights-amendment-metoo-illinois>
>
> It’s taken 45 years for 37 states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, with Illinois’s vote on Wednesday to do so 
> leaving it one short of the 38 states needed to enshrine a formal amendment in the US Constitution.
>
> But there’s a legal debate raging about whether the deadline to ratify the amendment guaranteeing equal rights to 
> women passed decades ago or if there’s a possible legal workaround.
>
> Still, an unclear future is the brightest prospect for the amendment in decades. The amendment, which guarantees 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,” passed Congress on a bipartisan basis in 1972, became a culture war battleground, and then, until last year, 
> lay dormant, presumed to be a lost cause.
>
> Its revival comes in the midst of the #MeToo movement, the Women’s March, and a moment of a sort of reawakening of 
> feminism and women’s activism in America. Women are running for office at record rates in 2018, and Donald Trump’s 
> victory — and Hillary Clinton’s loss — in 2016 has spurred a new wave of women finding their voices and insisting on 
> equality. That’s translated not just to new causes but to the revival of old ones: For decades, Indiana, which 
> ratified the amendment in 1977, was the 35th and last state to sign on. Then last year, Nevada became the 36th.
>
> The Equal Rights Amendment had a lot of momentum behind it in the 1970s, and then it just sort of petered out
>
> The Equal Rights Amendment dates back to the 1920s and came about after the 19th Amendment, which gave women the 
> right to vote. It was first introduced by suffragist leader Alice Paul in 1923, and it has three simple parts:
>
> Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on 
> account of sex.
>
> Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
>
> Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
>
> The amendment gained momentum in the 1960s and ’70s, culminating with passage in the US Senate and the House of 
> Representatives in 1972, which put it on track to become what would have been the 27th Amendment of the Constitution. 
> It was sent to the states for ratification and put on a seven-year deadline.
>
> Support was, initially, bipartisan and broad. In the first year after the amendment was passed, 22 states ratified 
> it. 
>
> But opposition began to organize, led by anti-feminist conservative leader Phyllis Schlafly, who argued the ERA would 
> erase legal differences between men and women and would lead to an America where men wouldn’t be required to support 
> their wives, anyone could walk into any bathroom, women could be drafted, and same-sex marriage would be legalized. 
> Schlafly died in 2016 at the age of 92.
>
> “Since the women are the ones who bear the babies, and there’s nothing we can do about that, our laws and customs 
> then make it the financial obligation of the husband to provide the support,” Schlafly said in 1973. “It is his 
> obligation and his sole obligation. And this is exactly and precisely what we will lose if the Equal Rights Amendment 
> is passed.”
>
> Schlafly’s line of attack caught on, as did others — that the ERA’s passage would expand abortion rights, that it 
> would infringe on states’ rights, that it would be costly to businesses. Indiana became the 35th state to ratify the 
> ERA in 1977. Then its momentum stalled.
>
> [snip]
>
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