Is Same-Sex Marriage the Equal Rights Amendment of the Gay Rights Struggle?
Rallying for the ERA, circa 1972
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.
That’s the Equal Rights Amendment, top to bottom. And while it seems like an inoffensive no-brainer of a statement, in almost a century, it has yet to become the law of the land. Since it was drafted in 1923 shortly after the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote, the ERA has remained tantalizingly out of reach.
Those who have opposed it, including such icons as Eleanor Roosevelt, have cited squeamishness over the role of women in the military, a threat to single-sex education, loss of Social Security benefits for widows, and even a broadening of abortion rights as excuses not to pass it.
Ironically, the success of the women’s movement of the ’70s and ’80s is largely to blame. So many discriminatory laws were overturned, especially in employment, that the ERA began to be seen as unnecessary. In fact, many post-feminist era young women have no idea that gender equality is not guaranteed in the Constitution.
I predict a similar fate for same-sex marriage.
