# Equal Rights Amendment: How do you think this is going to play out now? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 1, 2018, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equal-rights-amendment-how-do-you-think-this-is-going-to-play-out-now/815239 "2018-06-01T04:21:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equal-rights-amendment-how-do-you-think-this-is-going-to-play-out-now/815239/61 "2018-06-03T18:37:36Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The meaning of “any person” never changed. It was simply ignored until it was no longer possible to ignore it. See post #53. The amendment cannot mean any person whatsoever because every law on the books discriminates against the class of people who desire to break it. And when the Court had to make that distinction early on, it held that it was clear that it was meant to overturn the Black Codes and other laws that treated newly freed slaves differently, and that its entire purpose was that now freed slaves were to be treated just as white people. It was not meant to be a revolutionary upheaval of the social order where women and children could now vote or serve on juries. As a matter of original intent, these early decisions were arguably correct. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equal-rights-amendment-how-do-you-think-this-is-going-to-play-out-now/815239/62 "2018-06-03T19:53:15Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Would be easier to just use EBS: Everyone But Straight. No, because the acronym includes many straight people, and ideally every straight person would consider themselves an ally. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equal-rights-amendment-how-do-you-think-this-is-going-to-play-out-now/815239/63 "2018-06-03T20:15:34Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That statement is wrong on 2 levels: The meaning of “equal protection” never changed either. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equal-rights-amendment-how-do-you-think-this-is-going-to-play-out-now/815239/64 "2018-06-03T20:21:57Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > So how do you think this will play out? Will SCOTUS (assuming it’s SCOTUS that handles this) say the 5 states’ rescinding of the ERA “counts” and that it has not yet reached the 38 needed, by the time the next state ratifies it? Given the current composition of SCOTUS, that’s pretty much certain. Likely it would go through the affected states’ Supreme Courts first, and The Five would certainly like it to be put to bed there. > [@](#): > > And will the Congressional seven-year deadline from the Carter/Reagan era still be upheld? That’s one route they could use to avoid having to decide if rescission is legal, since the Constitution says nothing about it. The Illinois news was certainly a surprise to those of us who thought the ERA was a Seventies thing whose purpose has largely been met already via legislation. But its symbolic value, if enacted, would be hard to overstate. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equal-rights-amendment-how-do-you-think-this-is-going-to-play-out-now/815239/65 "2018-06-03T20:29:17Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That statement is wrong on 2 levels: > > 1. “Any person” would include children, so are you arguing that we’re ignoring the rights of 2-year-olds to vote, and that some future court will, correctly, fix that error? > > 2. The discussion was centered on “original intent”, not “what is the dictionary definition”. What were the people thinking who wrote the amendment. Now, it’s true that we can’t actually know with absolute certainty that the framers of the 14th amendment do not intend (note the use of the word “intend”) it to apply to SSM, but I think we can be about as certain of that as any type of historical analysis. If you want to argue that it was their intent, have at it. But saying that you looked the word up in the dictionary and found it to mean “X” is more of a textualist argument than one based on original intent. In fact, I doubt that the men (and they were all men) who drafted and voted on that amendment intended it to apply to women. If they did, they did a hell of job hiding that intent since it took another amendment, some 60 years later, to ensure that women were allowed to vote in all the states. Indeed, especially when read in conjunction with Section 2: > [@Fourteenth Amendment](#): > > Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. > > Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. After reading “equal protection” in Section 1, it clearly cannot mean what the left today says it means because in Section 2, the same Congress in the same amendment specifically said that a state can deny the right to vote to: 1. All children 2. All women 3. Any man over 21, so long as their representation is reduced by the formula. 4. Anyone convicted of any crime. It required the Fifteenth Amendment passed three years later to guarantee the right of all adult men to vote. As you said, it took another sixty years for another amendment to allow women to vote. And it took another one hundred years to allow all people between ages 18 and 21 to vote. If “equal protection” meant what the left says, why was the Fifteenth Amendment even necessary three years later? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2018, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equal-rights-amendment-how-do-you-think-this-is-going-to-play-out-now/815239/66 "2018-06-05T03:05:52Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Where does the legislature get the power to set a deadline? IIRC, didn’t they say it in one of the court cases on the 27th Amendment. Basically there is no time limit if Congress fails to set on because they have the power to set one if they want. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equal-rights-amendment-how-do-you-think-this-is-going-to-play-out-now/815239.md?page=3)