Activists Seek to Resuscitate 1972 Equal Rights Amendment

Equal Rights Amendment supporters demonstrate outside Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Va., on Jan. 8, 2020. AP Photo/Steve Helber

A coalition of feminist and transgender groups is turning to Congress to breathe new life into the twice-dead Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

First introduced in 1972, the ill-fated amendment failed to be ratified by the constitutionally required 38 states within the seven years Congress allotted for the process.

It fell short again even after Congress, by a simple majority vote, extended the time limit by another three years.

Over the first seven years, 35 states ratified the amendment but five of them rescinded their ratification before the deadline expired.

Forty years elapsed between the time Indiana ratified the ERA in 1977 and another state did the same.

Attorney Kris Ullman, president of the Eagle Forum, a national pro-family advocacy group, told The Epoch Times that radical ERA promoters have never recognized the validity of the five rescissions.

“Since Indiana’s ratification, which fell within the legal time limit, no state ratified the ERA until the Nevada state legislature did so in 2017, 40 years later,” said Ullman.

The ‘Three State Strategy’

Nevada’s ratification was the first salvo in what became known as the “Three State Strategy,” a plan adopted by ERA promoters to add three states to the 35 ratifications they claim are still valid, thus arriving at the 38 required for adoption of the amendment.

Illinois ratified the ERA in 2018, followed by Virginia in 2020, setting the stage for a showdown in Congress.

Today, advocates say all that stands in the way of the ERA from becoming the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution is a vote by Congress.

President Kris Ullman (Left) and Chairwoman Anne Cori of Eagle Forum. Courtesy of Eagle Forum

“They want Congress to disavow the 1982 expiration date, recognize that the required 38 states have now ratified the amendment, and declare ERA the law of the land,” said Ullman.

The text of the amendment approved by Congress in 1972 reads:

“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

Add Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

According to Ullman, pro-trans and pro-abortion groups are the strongest supporters of the ERA.

“In my opinion, they want to use the ERA to insert gender identity and sexual orientation into the Constitution and use it to strike down all restrictions on abortion,” she said.

Adoption of the ERA would jeopardize the existence of “female-only spaces.” It could eliminate single-sex women’s domestic violence shelters, single-sex prisons, schools, and sports, according to Ullman.

“I’m also concerned about the possible elimination of the military draft exemption for women,” she said.

Other common arguments against the ERA are that it could adversely affect women’s life insurance rates, some women’s social welfare programs, certain aspects of immigration law, accommodations for pregnant women in the workplace, and state labor law protections for women doing heavy work.

A Raucous Senate Hearing

The first step in the most recent effort to adopt the ERA began on Jan. 24 with the introduction of Senate Joint Resolution 4 by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the resolution on Feb. 28.

Ullman, who was at the hearing, told The Epoch Times that several Democrats on the committee opened the proceedings by asserting that women in the United States are discriminated against.

The committee then heard from representatives of several groups demanding the amendment be immediately recognized by Congress as ratified.

“When opponents of the resurrected ERA tried to testify, some in the audience became so disruptive that three unruly protesters were removed from the room by security while shouting ‘Women are dying!’” said Ullman.

LGBT Leaders Weigh In

LGBT activists are among the leading proponents of the ERA. In social media posts, they express fear of losing many of their recently hard-won rights at the hands of a conservative Supreme Court and conservative state legislatures.

One LGBT online post said the ERA is needed in order to provide “a wider tent of constitutional protection.”

Other ERA promoters say they worry that the right of equal protection under the law as outlined in the Fifth and 14th Amendments does not go far enough and the numerous state civil rights laws already on the books protecting the rights of women are inadequate and vulnerable to change.

Changing Definitions

“The word ‘sex’ today has many different definitions and connotations than it had in the 1970s,” said Chairwoman Anne Cori of the Eagle Forum.

Ullman said that the objective of the political left has been to redefine what the word “sex” means.

“I do not trust people who cannot even define the word ‘woman’ to determine that,” she said.

Phyllis Schlafly is interviewed by a television reporter while attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, Friday, Feb. 19, 2010. AP Photo/Cliff Owen

Cori, daughter of the late conservative political activist and ERA nemesis Phyliss Schlafly, told The Epoch Times, “The ERA would make illegal any kind of distinctions on the basis of sex. It cuts across every aspect of the law and makes everything sex neutral.

“The ERA makes males and females interchangeable in every aspect of life. Everybody knows there are fundamental biological differences between men and women. It’s folly to pretend they can be interchanged.

“We don’t want it,“ she said. ”We must prevent the government from forcing it down our throats.”

Will it Pass?

Ullman told The Epoch Times she is confident that the ERA promoters will not get 15 Republican senators to join the 51 Democrats in order to pass Senate Joint Resolution 4 with the two-thirds majority needed for adoption.

“It’s clear they don’t have the votes,“ Cori said. ”If they did, it would have been passed already.”

Ullman said she has no doubt that the losing side will take the issue to the Supreme Court.

That may prove a tall order for ERA proponents because, on the very day of the hearing, it was announced that a federal appeals court had just upheld a prior federal district court ruling that found that deadlines for the ratification of the amendment had “expired long ago.”