Equal Rights Amendment Facts

Equal Rights Amendment Fact Sheet

The Florida Legislature needs to join the other 35 states and ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ... the moral issue of Equality for All. The Equal Rights Amendment costs Florida virtually nothing and would bring Florida out of the mental swamps and chads!

Equal Rights Amendment BILLS already filled for THE 2006 LEGISLATIVE SESSION: SCR 204 and HCR 8005! I did my job. Now, please phone or see you Florida legislators to co-sponsor and to vote for it. YOU are their VIP!

Contact Equal Rights Alliance, Inc. at [email protected] or [email protected].

What is the Equal Rights Amendment? Note: References available as noted below as (Ref.)

• Equal Rights Amendment is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution first proposed in 1923, soon after the amendment providing for the right of American women to vote was adopted. Strong actions to achieve ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment reached their height from 1972-1982, when 35 of the 38 required states had ratified. So, the Equal Rights Amendment was not then ratified, but just slept. Until now!!!!!

The text of the Equal Rights Amendment has remained the same since 1943:

“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. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.” It means that where sex discrimination is now practiced, it must stop. For the first time in U.S. history, people can pursue their life courses according to their interests and capabilities, unlimited by their sex.

Why is ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment important now?

• America is ready: All the "Dreadeds" (unisex bathrooms, women in combat, abortion, same-sex anything) are all moot. Now our brave servicewomen and men fight overseas for equality there, but return home to be denied. SHAME ON THE U.S! During the previous work to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, 61% of citizens polled said they believed the Equal Rights Amendment belongs in the U.S. Constitution – and look how much was done with that 61% support! But, now an independent professional survey shows that 88% of American citizens want the Equal Rights Amendment in the Constitution. Yet, most believe it’s already there – 72%! (Ref. nationwide survey, Views of the American People on Equal Rights for Male/Female Citizens, Opinion Research Corporation, Princeton, NJ, established in 1939). Florida's ERA, Inc. is wildly successful in rousing citizen's and legislator's support. Be part of it - pitch in for Florida's ratification.

• U.S. Congressional Resolutions for Constitutional adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment now await the completion of the full 38 states’ ratifications. Past state ratifications cannot be rescinded. (Ref.) A three-state strategy has been proposed that is less costly, less time-consuming, quicker, and less risky politically than starting ratifications all over. Ratifications of only three more states out of the 15 still unratified are needed. (Ref.)

• By past precedent (an unrelated 203 year old amendment was recently ratified) the Equal Rights Amendment is still legally held timely (“contemporaneous”) and viable, fair, and just by Congressional Research Service, which researches legal issues and other for Congress.

• Bills to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment are currently being introduced in the States of Illinois, Missouri, Florida, and others. Still unratified are the States of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, N. Carolina, Oklahoma, S. Carolina, Utah and Virginia. We only need three of them!

• No nation can afford to put aside more than half its population. America needs every shoulder to the wheel. Women’s power should be unleashed to propel our society and its economy forward.

• Young women expect equality. Older women demand equality as unfinished business. There is a People's groundswell for the Equal Rights Amendment - The Equal Rights Amendment’s TIME HAS COME!

Why do we still need the Equal Rights Amendment?

• The majority of American citizens – women – still do not have any incontestable, constitutionally guaranteed rights to self-determination as whole, free persons other than the right to vote.

• Men’s rights can also be negatively impacted by the absence of an Equal Rights Amendment. Florida women are still paid an average of 28% less for the same or comparable jobs even when upaid family care time is factored in! That injustice affects Social Security and pensions: one in seven elderly women wind up in poverty. Military servicewomen are still being discriminated against and violated, too. Without the Equal Rights Amendment, courts are free to discriminate on basis of sex.

• State statutes and constitutions supposedly assuring women’s legal rights continue to be diluted, unenforced, made worse, or overturned state by state, (e.g., Florida's Constitution vis a vis Case No. 5DOO-3660, Fifth DCA, Florida, December 14, 2001).

• The 14th Amendment often has been ineffective to support women’s Constitutional equality (sect. 2 confers it to be men only). Laws, too, can be thwarted, ignored, weakened, overturned, or made worse. Note that the very successful, established law, Title IX, was nearly overturned recently, as was Affirmative Action, which worked for many years to help equalize the workplace for women and minorities. Laws remain somewhat ephemeral - no matter how long in place!

• In 1874, American women realized that if they wanted the right to vote (eventually won in 1920, fifty years after ALL men) they would have to amend the U.S. Constitution. One hundred years later, (Ref. Craig v Boren) women again realized that if we want Equality guaranteed in writing, we are going to have to amend the Constitution again. The Equal Rights Amendment is the only firewall around equality of the sexes. Typically, after years of sex discrimination – large and small, when any woman finally gets enough courage and enough cash to go to court, she is discriminated against AGAIN! Traditionally courts may review her case with less importance, with Intermediate Scrutiny. Strict Scrutiny, higher level, is accorded cases of discrimination based on race, religion or national origin. (Ref.) Because these ARE in the Constitution - sex discrimination is not.

• Every constitution in the world written after World War II includes a statement that men and women are persons of equal stature or similar words (per Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, May 2002, paraphrased interview), but not the United States. Afghan people have something Americans don’t – guaranteed equal rights (January 6, 2004). At least they have it IN WRITING - WE DON'T. What one doesn't have guaranteed in writing, one just does not HAVE.

Benefits that could derive from an Equal Rights Amendment include: Legal first-class citizenship status. Full rights to self-determination as full and whole persons. Equal treatment under the law (men and child custody, draft registration). Equal pay. Studies show that a nation enjoys more social and fiscal stability where equality is the standard. As educational levels go up, divorce rates decline. Most women especially KNOW they are routinely discriminated against. It is demoralizing, un-American.

Who is actively supporting passage of the Equal Rights Amendment?

• You are, when you donate to this Equal Rights Amendment, Inc. initiative by sending a financial contribution to Equal Rights Alliance, P.O. Box 59023, N. Redington Beach, FL 33708 or by lending a hand in a variety of ways to help.

Right now, phone or e-mail your Florida Representatives and Senators to make an appointment to urge them to cosponsor and vote for the 2007 Equal Rights Amendment bills., then tell us, we'll take care of the rest. With nearly 75% of the states having ratified the Equal Rights Amendment more than 20 years ago, IT’s TIME FOR FLORIDA TO CLIMB OUT OF THE “MENTAL SWAMPS” and cease holding the rest of the nation hostage for equality. Ask YOUR legislators if they want to help make history by guaranteeing EQUALITY to all Americans regardless of sex. Contact them and ask them to cosponsor AND vote for the Equal Rights Amendment in 2007.

• National Equal Rights Amendment organizations are forging ON across America. The newest, dynamic one is based in Georgia and headed by Idella Moore at the interactive www.4ERA.org. Another is the 24-state ERA Campaign Network (www.ERACampaign.net) with 38 Coordinators. The 160-organization National Council of Women’s Organizations at www.equalrightsamendment.org is another. Sandy Oestreich is founder and president of our Florida ERA Inc. and the nonprofit, ERA Education Fund. A new Coordinator is Tara Laxer, on campus at FAU, Boca Ration. Our website (www.RatifyERAFlorida.net) also links with fascinating national Equal Rights Amendment websites for history, legalities, new strategies and updates.

• REMEMBER, several states are filing bills - and we only need three to ratify!

• 386 major organizations, 294,000 supporters, such as the American Assn. of University Women USA and FL, Business & Professional Women USA and FL, Florida Assn. of Counties, Florida Women's Consortium, League of Women Voters FL, Nat'l Commission on the Status of Women, several newspapers and 88% of voters by independent survey have endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment. Many are members of our Equal Rights Allliance, Inc. There's an ERA Task Force Central in St. Petersburg, Young People for Equal Rights Amendment at schools and colleges and 55 Regional Equal Rights Amendment Action Teams across Florida, all lobbying and gaining legislators' votes, speaking out, rallying. Ask how you can join forces with your local Team or start one along with such Equal Rights Amendment legends as former U.S. Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder (Florida's Equal Rights Amendment Board Chair & Spokeswoman); former senators Helen Gordon Davis, Pat Frank, Mary Grizzle; Rep. Arthenia Joyner and Sen. Gwen Margolis (bill sponsors), Representatives Don Sullivan (former), Nancy Detert, Frank Farkas, Anne Gannon; Alex Sink (businesswoman), Carmen Elias-Levenson (Pres., Women's Chamber of Commerce, Miami-Dade), Nancy Hurlbert (fmr BPWUS pres.), Carol Newnam (Pres AAUW/FL), Dianne Wheatly-Giliotti (Pres., LWV Florida), Rachel Sieg, Pres., Business & Professional Women/FL, Pinellas County Commissioners, Susan Latvala and Sallie Parks (former), attorneys Marcia Cohen and Kathleen Ford (former St Petersburg Council member).