News Blog for social, fiscal & national security conservatives who believe in God, family & the USA. Upholding the rights granted by God & guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, traditional family values, "republican" principles / ideals, transparent & limited "smaller" government, free markets, lower taxes, due process of law, liberty & individual freedom. Content approval rests with the ARRA News Service Editor. Opinions are those of the authors. While varied positions are reported, beliefs & principles remain fixed. No revenue is generated for or by this "Blog" - no paid ads - no payments for articles.Fair Use Doctrine is posted & used. Blogger/Editor/Founder: Bill Smith, Ph.D. [aka: OzarkGuru & 2010 AFP National Blogger of the Year] Contact: editor@arranewsservice.com (Pub. Since July, 2006)Home PageFollow @arra
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Six Reasons to Oppose the ERA
by Patrick Briney, Ph.D.. President, ARRA: The ERA anti-family activists are at it again. 4ERA, “a national, non-partisan, single-issue, grassroots organization,” declares its mission is to “build solidarity among Americans for ratifying and promulgating the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution.” Arkansas is on its hit list. They sponsored a rally in the Capitol Rotunda January 24, 2007 and invited Governor Beebe & the other Constitutional officers to speak. They also lobbied legislators to support their agenda.
Why Arkansas? This national, anti-family group has targeted Arkansas as part of its three state strategy. To amend to the Constitution, thirty-eight states must ratify the ERA. At present, only thirty-five states have ratified ERA. The support of three states more is needed. The fifteen states that have not ratified ERA include Arkansas, Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia. In a set back for the ERA, five states (Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota) have since rescinded their ratifications thereby requiring ratification by eight more states.
ERA resolutions have been introduced into the legislatures of Arkansas, Arizona, Illinois, Florida, Missouri, and Virginia; and active ERA campaigns are being conducted in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. The Arkansas Senate barely rejected the ERA by only two votes in its 2006 session.
The text of the Equal Rights Amendment, as proposed in 1972 by the 92nd Congress, and as published in Volume 86, "United States Statutes At Large" (pages 1523–1524), reads as follows:
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
The language in this amendment is problematic for the following reasons - click to read. The fact that women today have successfully championed their rights in society and in the courts since 1789 is a testimony to the sufficiency of the Constitution to guarantee those rights. Attempts to approve the ERA, which only serves to confuse, take local and state control away from people, threaten religious and private institutions, and open the door for anti-family activists including homosexuals and abortionists, is ill advised. The ERA has been rejected since 1972 because it is a sloppy proposal. There is no mention of women in the amendment, and attempts to clarify its meaning have been futile. An amendment should be clear about its intent, and the ERA fails to do this. Tags:Arkansas, Arkansas Republican Assembly, ARRA, Equal Right Amendment, ERATo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Concepts such as "equality" and "fairness" cannot be advanced through dishonest procedures. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on October 4, 1982 that ERA is "moot," i.e., legally dead as of June 30, 1982. Trying to pass an amendment more than 20 years after it died would be like trying to replay the last quarter of a high school football game — at the 20-year class reunion. That doesn't make sense because the real game is over. http://www.eagleforum.org/era/now-v-idaho.html
ERA would legalize same-sex marriages. ERA would invalidate the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and similar laws passed in 37 states including Illinois. ERA would make same-sex marriages a constitutional right based on the plain meaning of the amendment which prohibits sex discrimination "on account of sex." Senator Sam Ervin Jr., the leading constitutional lawyer in the U.S. Senate until his retirement, stated in Raleigh, NC (2-22-77): "I don't know but one group of people in the United States the ERA would do any good for. That's homosexuals." Senator Ervin told the U.S. Senate that ERA's requirement to recognize same-sex marriages illustrates "the radical departures from our present system that the ERA will bring about in our society." He placed in the Congressional Record (3-22-72) similar testimony by top legal authorities Professor Paul Freund of the Harvard Law School and Professor James White of the Michigan Law School. This analysis is supported in the Yale Law Journal (2-73), and in the leading textbook on sex discrimination used in U.S. law schools, Sex Discrimination and the Law. The 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas proves we can't depend on the courts to protect us against gay litigation.
ERA would require taxpayer funding of abortions (which the majority of Americans oppose). We know this because New Mexico's state supreme court ruled on November 25, 1998 that its State ERA requires abortion funding. The court accepted the ERAers' reasoning that, since only women undergo abortions, the denial of taxpayer funding is "sex discrimination." N.M. Right to Choose/NARAL v. Johnson, 975 P.2d 841 (1998). See also the National Right to Life statement against ERA (2-15-03).
ERA would require women to be equally assigned to all combat positions in the military (and to be drafted if Rep. Charles Rangel succeeds in his bill to reinstate the draft). "Combat" includes positions from which women are now excluded such as ground infantry and submarines. When we fight nasty wars against terrorists, we do not want social experimentation or judicial activism to interfere with readiness. Women perform nobly in many military positions but should not be forced into ground combat where they can be captured and abused by the enemy.
Section 2 of ERA would transfer enormous areas of law from state legislatures to the Federal Government. This would include marriage, divorce, family property law, adoptions, abortions, alimony, some criminal laws, public and private schools, prison regulations, and insurance rates. The famous Watergate Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr., a recognized constitutional authority, said: "If this Equal Rights Amendment is adopted, it will virtually reduce the States of this Nation to meaningless zeroes on the Nation's map."
Phyllis, During the previous campaign to ratify the ERA, many of the women who organized and worked for the ERA were housewives who had been raised to stock up their hope chests and look for a husband. They were new to advocacy. Well, you're facing a completely different group this time. We're not housewives who grew up in the 40s this time around. We're educated, politcally savy and experienced and this time we have more money (that we've earned), because we have careers. We also have many more men who don't buy into the idea that women need legal protections.
We can shoot down not just these six reasons, but any others you come up with.
You're in a different century and different ballgame. You're all way too old for the game and have no one warming up in the bullpen. You think that day you spoke in the Illinois HOuse back in 2003 was a just a bad day? That was just a warm up.
Ultra Liberal Democrat State Rep. Lindsley Smith and Republican Stan Berry's Gay Agenda (HJR1002),
"Equal Rights Amendment" bill is going to open the door to gay marriage in Arkansas & also public funded abortions. Thank you Lindsley and Stan for making Arkansas more like California. We wish you would remove yourself as a sponsor immediately. We know it will upset the pro-homosexual blogger Max Brantley over at ArkTimes but we will forgive you. ... Read complete post at http://arkansasfamilycoalition.blogspot.com/2007/01/ultra-liberal-democrat-state-rep.html
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by Patrick Briney, Ph.D.. President, ARRA: The ERA anti-family activists are at it again. 4ERA, “a national, non-partisan, single-issue, grassroots organization,” declares its mission is to “build solidarity among Americans for ratifying and promulgating the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution.” Arkansas is on its hit list. They sponsored a rally in the Capitol Rotunda January 24, 2007 and invited Governor Beebe & the other Constitutional officers to speak. They also lobbied legislators to support their agenda.
7 Comments:
Concepts such as "equality" and "fairness" cannot be advanced through dishonest procedures.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on October 4, 1982 that ERA is "moot," i.e., legally dead as of June 30, 1982. Trying to pass an amendment more than 20 years after it died would be like trying to replay the last quarter of a high school football game — at the 20-year class reunion. That doesn't make sense because the real game is over.
http://www.eagleforum.org/era/now-v-idaho.html
ERA would legalize same-sex marriages. ERA would invalidate the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and similar laws passed in 37 states including Illinois. ERA would make same-sex marriages a constitutional right based on the plain meaning of the amendment which prohibits sex discrimination "on account of sex." Senator Sam Ervin Jr., the leading constitutional lawyer in the U.S. Senate until his retirement, stated in Raleigh, NC (2-22-77): "I don't know but one group of people in the United States the ERA would do any good for. That's homosexuals." Senator Ervin told the U.S. Senate that ERA's requirement to recognize same-sex marriages illustrates "the radical departures from our present system that the ERA will bring about in our society." He placed in the Congressional Record (3-22-72) similar testimony by top legal authorities Professor Paul Freund of the Harvard Law School and Professor James White of the Michigan Law School. This analysis is supported in the Yale Law Journal (2-73), and in the leading textbook on sex discrimination used in U.S. law schools, Sex Discrimination and the Law. The 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas proves we can't depend on the courts to protect us against gay litigation.
ERA would require taxpayer funding of abortions (which the majority of Americans oppose). We know this because New Mexico's state supreme court ruled on November 25, 1998 that its State ERA requires abortion funding. The court accepted the ERAers' reasoning that, since only women undergo abortions, the denial of taxpayer funding is "sex discrimination." N.M. Right to Choose/NARAL v. Johnson, 975 P.2d 841 (1998). See also the National Right to Life statement against ERA (2-15-03).
ERA would require women to be equally assigned to all combat positions in the military (and to be drafted if Rep. Charles Rangel succeeds in his bill to reinstate the draft). "Combat" includes positions from which women are now excluded such as ground infantry and submarines. When we fight nasty wars against terrorists, we do not want social experimentation or judicial activism to interfere with readiness. Women perform nobly in many military positions but should not be forced into ground combat where they can be captured and abused by the enemy.
Section 2 of ERA would transfer enormous areas of law from state legislatures to the Federal Government. This would include marriage, divorce, family property law, adoptions, abortions, alimony, some criminal laws, public and private schools, prison regulations, and insurance rates. The famous Watergate Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr., a recognized constitutional authority, said: "If this Equal Rights Amendment is adopted, it will virtually reduce the States of this Nation to meaningless zeroes on the Nation's map."
Phyllis,
During the previous campaign to ratify the ERA, many of the women who organized and worked for the ERA were housewives who had been raised to stock up their hope chests and look for a husband. They were new to advocacy. Well,
you're facing a completely different group this time. We're not housewives who grew up in the 40s this time around. We're educated, politcally savy and experienced and this time we have more money (that we've earned), because we have careers. We also have many more men who don't buy into the idea that women need legal protections.
We can shoot down not just these six reasons, but any others you come up with.
You're in a different century and different ballgame. You're all way too old for the game and have no one warming up in the bullpen. You think that day you spoke in the Illinois HOuse back in 2003 was a just a bad day? That was just a warm up.
Ultra Liberal Democrat State Rep. Lindsley Smith and Republican Stan Berry's Gay Agenda (HJR1002),
"Equal Rights Amendment" bill is going to open the door to gay marriage in Arkansas & also public funded abortions. Thank you Lindsley and Stan for making Arkansas more like California. We wish you would remove yourself as a sponsor immediately. We know it will upset the pro-homosexual blogger Max Brantley over at ArkTimes but we will forgive you. ...
Read complete post at http://arkansasfamilycoalition.blogspot.com/2007/01/ultra-liberal-democrat-state-rep.html
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