Rallying for the ERA, circa 1972
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.
That’s the Equal Rights Amendment, top to bottom. And while it seems like an inoffensive no-brainer of a statement, in almost a century, it has yet to become the law of the land. Since it was drafted in 1923 shortly after the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote, the ERA has remained tantalizingly out of reach.
Those who have opposed it, including such icons as Eleanor Roosevelt, have cited squeamishness over the role of women in the military, a threat to single-sex education, loss of Social Security benefits for widows, and even a broadening of abortion rights as excuses not to pass it.
Ironically, the success of the women’s movement of the ’70s and ’80s is largely to blame. So many discriminatory laws were overturned, especially in employment, that the ERA began to be seen as unnecessary. In fact, many post-feminist era young women have no idea that gender equality is not guaranteed in the Constitution.
I predict a similar fate for same-sex marriage.
Polls show that the majority of Americans, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, favor civil unions but not same-sex marriage. As of the November 2008 elections, 29 states have amended their constitutions to prohibit same-sex marriage. It’s only legal in two, while three others offer civil unions.
At the same time, most large and/or public employers extend benefits to domestic partners, regardless of marital status. Adoption of children by gay individuals and couples is legal or not explicitly denied in 46 states. While many other strides have been made by gay rights supporters, this one final right — to marry the person they love — might be forever denied. This might be as good as it gets, for both women and gays.
I support both same-sex marriage and the Equal Rights Amendment and always will, but I recognize I might not see either come to pass in the country at large.
To me, the best outcome for all the thought exercises generated by the loss of support for gay marriage in California, followed by Obama’s invitation to evangelist Pastor Rick Warren to participate in the inauguration, would be to stem this tide and by the next election cycle, begin to turn it. Our side needs a fresh approach and maybe once we figure out what we really want, we’ll come up with one. As long as equality is denied, we won’t stop trying.
- Topic: Blogroll, News & Comment
- Topics: Congress
I was an activist in North Carolina for the ERA, and remember the defeat of its ratification in the NC Senate as a precursor of the dark days of the Reagan-Bush-Bush right-wing ascendancy to come.
There is one stark difference between the ERA and gay marriage that bodes well for gay marriage over the long term. Gay marriage will eventually be decided by the Supreme Court, whereas the ERA has to go through the onerous process of ratification in Congress and the states.
Let’s hope that when the day comes that the Supremes rule on the right to marry, Obama will have had the opportunity to replace some of the right-wing ideologues with civil libertarians.
The Defense of Marriage Act, for example, which was intended to abrogate the full faith and credit clause, is unconstitutional on its face. One route to the Supremes could be when a couple who got married in California or Massachusetts moved to another state wants their marriage recognized, or if they chose to divorce. This will be grounds for a suit on the grounds that the full faith and credit clause should make their marriage contract valid in all states.
But it’s likely that Prop 8 will get to the U.S. supremes first, because, unlike the 29 other anti-gay marriage amendments, Prop 8 repealed the existing right to marry in California, and because if it is allowed to stand it will serve as precedent for using the popular vote to repeal other minorities’ rights.
Another factor is that the generation in their teens and twenties now are far more comfortable about homosexuality than their parents who are in their forties. This is true even among young evangelicals.
Even if the civil right of gays to marry fails in the Supreme Court in the next 10 years, it will return again and again until it passes, just like African American civil rights did.
Before then, however, I predict that gay marriage will be legal again in California within the next five years, and that it will be legal in the District of Columbia, every northeastern state, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and possibly Minnesota within a decade.
The moving to another state scenario is interesting. I wonder what happens now, when say a marriage occurred where the age of consent with parental permission was 15 but the couple immediately moved to a state where it is older.
The second state has to recognize the marriage. The only exemption is for gay marriages, per DOMA. It violates the full faith and credit clause and the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of civil rights.
Maybe you could briefly move to Nevada (Pahrump?) in order to be the one to bring the challenge.
My doppleganger lives there, and, as you know, if matter and anti-matter collide, it causes rift in time-space. Otherwise, I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather live.
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