Ammending the consitituion is a BIG DEAL. A REAL BIG DEAL. I would never support adding something as trivial as spelling out that Women are to be treated the same as all “citizens”. Everyone has their pet little thing they want in the constitution. Thank the goddess that our founding Mothers were smart enough to make it extremely hard indeed to change that truely magnificent document.
Lissa: That site’s arguments are a crock. It is simply not true that there exists a “traditional assumption that males hold rights and females must prove that they hold them.” The 14th amendment has been – and continues to be – an entirely adequate vehicle for squelching gender discrimination.
And the ERA adds nothing to it. The equal protection clause does take a slightly (and only slightly) more permissive view of gender discrimination than it does of racial discrimination: regulations dealing with sex are subject to “heightened scrutiny” rather than “strict scrutiny.” But that’s for a good reason: there are physiological differences that sometimes makes disparate treatment of the sexes OK; surely no one would object, for example, to a city ordinance requiring that males and females use separate bathroom facilities. Or, in fact, to a rule requiring that female bathroom facilities be larger than male bathroom facilities – the simple anatomical fact that males can use a urinal while women cannot makes this unequal treatment of males OK. I suspect that the ERA wouldn’t change that analysis; I suspect most of its proponents wouldn’t want it to.
I have yet to hear one concrete example of what the ERA would gain its proponents that is not already incororpoated via the equal protection clause. All you ever hear are glittering generalities on the topic. Just once, I’d like to hear someone describe a specific situation where the 14th amendment fails to provide a remedy and the ERA succeeds in doing so.
If the supreme court can find a right to privacy in the constituion, surely they can find that the term “citizen” applies to women.
I don’t like affirmative action. It is racist. I say the disadvantages of opportunity should be addressed based on accessibility to opportunity, regardless of race. If one race or another is more or less disadvataged, then those in those respective races should be addressed based on access to opportunity on a per person basis, not a race as a whole. Why can’t we all just get along?
Good luck. I doubt you’ll hear such a concrete example because, like you, I don’t think such an example exists. Just to add to your thoughts about the ERA generally being unnecessary, and the thoughts of the poster commenting about what a big deal it is to amend the Constitution for unnecessary reasons, I’d add that I have not personally met a woman yet who wasn’t offended by the notion that she might need another amendment to guarantee her rights. The 14th amendment already guarantees equal protection to “citizens” and “any person” in America; women I know are rightly offended by the notion that they might not be included as either citizens or persons under the 14th amendment and might need a whole 'nother one saying “women” get rights too.