The Mississippi Legislature should take initiative to ratify the would-be 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, otherwise known as the Equal Rights Amendment. It states, “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 14th Amendment, which was intended to ensure the rights of black citizens and guarantee them “equal protection of the laws,” could have also pertained to women. However, the wording of the amendment consistently refers to “male citizens” as the beneficiaries of this protection.
The only amendment that directly addresses the rights of females is the 19th Amendment. It guarantees us the right to vote, but it stops short of protecting us from discrimination or protecting basic rights like equal pay. The Equal Rights Amendment would address all such disparities by issuing a blanket statement of equality between men and women.
Conservatives, unfortunately including some women like Phyllis Schlafly, object to the Equal Rights Amendment for a number of reasons. Schlafly insists that “the Constitution is already a sex neutral document” and that women do not need any added protections. If that were the case, then the 19th Amendment would not have been necessary to guarantee women the right to vote.
Schlafly also projects that the Equal Rights Amendment would be used to draft women into the military. This should raise questions about the draft itself, which has not been utilized in 30 years. If the draft were only used for the direct defense of United States soil, then the chances of women, or anyone for that matter, being forced into the military would be slim.
Conservatives also insist that the Equal Rights Amendment would only benefit homosexuals, paving the way for same-sex marriages. If that is true, then it is also true homosexual couples who desire their relationships to have the same legal status under the law as heterosexual couples are discriminated against solely on the basis of sex.
For what other reason can they not be married? For religious reasons? That goes against the concept of “separation of church and state.”
Another argument of Schlafly’s is that the Equal Rights Amendment would make abortion constitutional. Indeed, it would be a grievous thing if the right to life of our unborn children were compromised in the Constitution. However, she does not make a good argument connecting the equality of men and women to a woman’s supposed right to abort her unborn child.
There is no relevant argument against the Equal Rights Amendment that cannot be easily refuted.
Former U.S. Rep. Stewart McKinney, R-Conn., admitted such in 1971 when he said, “Use the draft for an excuse if you like. Use women’s work rules … Use anything else. But what we are simply doing is in our own little way trying to maintain to ourselves the right to declare a difference between human beings.”
McKinney admitted the duplicity of his and other conservatives’ arguments against the Equal Rights Amendment. They pretend to be concerned with protecting women, while their real goal is to continue to suppress and subjugate us under the law.
Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972 and sent it to be ratified by three-fourths of the states, as required by law. Only 35 of the 38 states needed had ratified it by its June 1982 deadline.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, have reintroduced the act to remedy the 1982 expiration.
A 30-year ratification process isn’t long compared to the ratification of the 27th Amendment. It was ratified by the 38th state in 1992 after its introduction by James Madison in 1789.
I urge my fellow college students and all Mississippi voters to contact your state representatives about it.
I also challenge Gov.-elect Haley Barbour to work with the Mississippi Legislature on this issue. As he said in his campaign against Ronnie Musgrove, “Mississippi doesn’t have to be last.”
Katherine Story is a junior history and Spanish major. She can be reached at [email protected].