ERA activists are eyeing a win in Virginia. Is now the time?

Dissociated Press ^ | October 26, 2019 | Sarah Rankin

[Olog-hai]

As Carol Jenkins sees it, a nearly 100-year push to add the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is closer to reality now than it’s ever been.

That’s why there’s a “tremendous effort” underway to elect supporters of the long-stalled gender equality measure in Virginia’s elections next month, says Jenkins, co-president and CEO of the nationwide ERA Coalition. Advocates hope if they can pick up a few seats from Republican opponents, the once solidly conservative Southern state that’s voted down the ERA time and again might instead be the critical 38th to approve it.

Virginia voters “have the future of girls and women in their hands,” Jenkins says.

Initially proposed in Congress in 1923 and passed in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment would ban discrimination on the basis of sex, explicitly enshrining equality for women in the U.S. Constitution. Thirty-seven states have ratified it; supporters say having 38 would meet the constitutional threshold for approval.

There’s a hitch: A 1982 ratification deadline set by Congress and other thorny questions are bound to hold up the efforts in court, many legal experts say.

ERA opponents criticize the measure as unnecessary, in part because of the 14^th Amendment, which guarantees all U.S. citizens “equal protection of the laws.” They say the long-passed deadline means the ERA amendment isn’t eligible for ratification now, something proponents say Congress could resolve. …

[TwelveOfTwenty]

If the men who enforce these laws were capable of thinking beyond that stupid lump of flesh hanging between their legs, then I would agree with you.

If they could, then the Equal Protection Act would already do what you say the ERA would do.

[no-to-illegals]

Many men do possess only one brain cell in that region and many women are just as guilty as men. Thus would presume each sex has their flaws. That one brain cell is a powerful force upon both men and women

[TwelveOfTwenty]

Compare the amount of money and time women spend fighting for their equal rights to the amount men spend on fighting for their equal rights.

Then compare the amount of money men spend on prostitutes to the amount of money women spend on prostitutes.

Then tell me which side thinks with the wrong head.