Allowing just three states to impose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution
that even proponents admitted died in 1982 is a moral fraud and a constitutional farce.

Written by Robert G. Marshall

Proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) want to create a constitutional Frankenstein by breathing life into its corpse some 36 years after its ratification was defeated, in large part thanks to Phyllis Schlafly and her Eagle Forum.

The ERA Congress sent to the states in 1972 stated: “Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

This simplistic language hid a radical progressive social agenda. Amendments were rejected to exempt women from frontline ground combat duty, to require husbands to support their children, to keep certain sexual assaults as crimes, to neutralize ERA’s effect on abortion, to exempt private schools from the ERA, to protect tax-exempt status of churches that have male-only clergy, to permit different insurance rates for men and women, and to deny men access to women’s private facilities and vice versa.

In 1972 Congress imposed a seven-year limit for states to ratify the ERA, as it established for all but two constitutional amendments since 1918. But when the amendment stalled in 1977 with the support of 35 states — three states short of the three-fourths needed for ratification — ERA advocates lobbied Congress to extend ratification seven more years.

Major ERA proponents said the amendment would die without an “extension.”

• National Organization of Women President Eleanor Smeal said, “We believe the life of the equal rights amendment is indeed in peril.”
• Marjorie Bell, American Association of University Women President noted: “Failure to extend now the time limit for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment would terminate … what Congress initiated six years ago.”
• Barbara Jordan said if the extension failed, “… the time will have expired for that resolution and I do not feel that would be a viable issue for consideration by the Congress because the resolution would, for all intents and purposes, be dead.”
• Then Professor, now Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said that if the original ratification time passes, “and Congress says nothing, it is unlikely that a State, given no green light by the national legislature, would nonetheless come forward and ratify.”
• President Jimmy Carter wrote to Judiciary Chairman Peter Rodino in July 1978, “I am hopeful that ERA will be ratified before the present deadline expires.”

Congress eventually extended the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982. (The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post, The New York Times and The New Republic all supported the ERA, but opposed the time extension.)

The ERA extension resolution did not recognize withdrawal of previous ERA ratifications from Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota even though North Dakota’s rescission of the Presidential Disability Amendment was recognized in 1967 by the U.S. Secretary of State, who then tallied records.

Even with the unprecedented extension, the ERA fell three states short of the 38 needed for ratification. ERA advocates recognized their 1982 loss and re-introduced the amendment to Congress in 1983, but failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed for it to pass the U.S. House of Representatives.

ERA proponents now claim they need only add three more states to the original 35 which ratified by 1982 (ignoring the five states rescinding approval), to reach the 38 states required to add the ERA to “their” Constitution!

Their novel claim derives from the adoption of the 27^th Amendment limiting congressional pay increases from taking place without an intervening election. This amendment passed Congress in 1789 without a ratification deadline. When 38 states finally approved it in 1992 — more than 200 years later — Congress declared it part of the Constitution, ignoring the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1921 finding that Congress could require contemporaneous approval of amendments.

Democratic Rep. Don Edwards, who supported the ERA extension and the Pay Amendment noted, “It should be clear that this [Pay Amendment] is an exception, not a precedent.”

Liberals are counting the actions by Nevada’s legislature (2017), and Illinois’ legislature (2018) allegedly ratifying the non-pending ERA as two of the three states they contend will bring them to the 38 state requirement.

Congressional joint resolutions from Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) proclaim that whenever 38 states “ratify” the version of the ERA submitted to the states on March 22, 1972, the ERA will be added to the Constitution. The resolutions do not mention the failed ERA time extension. Speier’s resolution has 165 cosponsors and Cardin’s has 36 cosponsors.

Cardin tweeted approval of the Illinois vote. “Most Americans are shocked to find out that the U.S. Constitution still lacks a provision ensuring gender equality. … We need just ONE more state to ratify and we need Congress to do its part by passing S. J. Res. 5, which would immediately remove the arbitrary and unnecessary deadline for states to ratify the #ERA.”

The words “Gender Equality,” mentioned in Cardin’s Tweet are not in the 1972 ERA, but hint at what liberals hope to achieve under their bogus ERA scheme. Opposition to “making women part of the Constitution” will invite the label of “bigot” or “hater.”

If one more state “votes” for the ERA, progressives are set to pressure Congress to declare the ERA approved. Possibly the Archivist of the United States, who initially certified the Pay Amendment before Congress did, will relieve Congress of its role.  This would duck the ruling in Idaho vs. Freeman (1981), in which a federal district court ruled states could rescind approvals and Congress could not extend the ratification time.

“Approval” of the ERA will legitimize other amendments still “floating around,” including one that increases the House of Representatives from 435 Congressmen to 6,400 (one for every 50,000 persons). Allowing just three states to impose a dead ERA on the Constitution, when even proponents admitted it died in 1982 is a moral fraud and a constitutional farce.

The passion of Leftists’ for their Utopia must be met with forthrightness from conservatives for constitutional government.  Find out today if your congressman and senators would affirm that only three states need to approve the ERA. If so, vote them out of office in November.

This article was originally published at The Federalist.

How did they vote?

On Wednesday evening, the Illinois House of Representatives voted 72 to 45 to ratify SJRCA 4, a completely unnecessary proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to eradicate sex as a legitimate characteristic on which to base reasonable distinctions.

Click HERE to see how your state representative voted on this legislation, or look at the graphic below.

For more than two hours, state lawmakers debated this issue. The fact that this legislation says nothing about women didn’t dissuade 15 legislators from rising to the microphone to express their support. These advocates included the sponsor, Lou Lang (D-Skokie), Ann Williams (D-Chicago), David Harris (R-Arlington Heights), Steve Andersson (R-Geneva), Stephanie Kifowit (D-Aurora), Laura Fine (D-Glenview), Christine Winger (R-Bloomingdale), Sue Scherer (D-Decatur), Emmanuel Welch (D-Chicago), Carol Ammons (D-Chicago), Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), Christian Mitchell (D-Chicago), Dan Brady (R-Bloomington), and Juliana Stratton (D-Chicago).

It is interesting to note that both State Representatives Christine Winger and Dan Brady prefaced their remarks by claiming to be pro-life, even though it is well known that Planned Parenthood is a strong proponent of this legislation precisely because it will expand abortion “rights” throughout the nation and dismantle vital abortion restrictions—including parental notification (or consent) laws.

On the pro-life/pro-family side, eight state lawmakers rose to speak against the ERA, including Pete Breen (R-Lombard), Allen Skillicorn (R-Crystal Lake), Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton), Mary Flowers (D-Chicago), Tom Morrison (R-Palatine), Terry Bryant (R-Mt. Vernon), and Rita Mayfield (D-Waukegan).

Proponents of the ERA claim that they need one more state to ratify this constitutional amendment for complete victory, even though the deadline for passage expired decades ago and even though five states have voted to rescind their ratification over the years it has been pending. If one more state votes for its passage, the issue will certainly wind up in the courts.

In addition to proponents of the legalized slaughter of human beings in the womb, there is another constituency that is celebrating tonight: people who masquerade as the sex they are not.

Thanks for nothing to the 72 feckless state representatives who demonstrated again why Illinois is such a sorry state.

The official roll call of this vote:

Written by Elise Bouc
State Chairman, Stop ERA Illinois

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA – SJRCA 4) is a poorly worded proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would restrict all laws and practices that make any distinctions based on gender or sex.    While we believe in equal opportunity for men and women, we also recognize that there are situations where we must make distinctions based on our biological differences such as providing privacy through separate bathrooms and locker rooms.  If the ERA becomes fully ratified, men and women could not be treated differently, even if the different treatment is due to physical differences.

The ERA will harm our unborn children

Since abortion is unique to women, any attempt to restrict a woman’s access to abortion is seen, under the rules of the ERA, as a form of sex discrimination – because women are being singled out for a characteristic that is unique to them, and they are being treated differently based on that physical characteristic (in this case- the ability to become pregnant).   Therefore any abortion restrictions would be overturned by the ERA. The ERA prohibits sex discrimination.  In addition, since medical procedures unique to men are funded by Medicaid (such as circumcision and prostatectomies), then abortion which is unique to women, must also receive Medicaid funding under ERA requirements.

Some of the states with state ERAs have already used their ERAs to mandate Medicaid funding for elective abortions and overturn abortion restrictions:

• The New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously ruled that under their state ERA since only women undergo abortions, the denial of taxpayer funding for abortions is “sex discrimination” (N.M. Right to Choose/NARAL v. Johnson, 975 P.2d 841, 1998). As a result, New Mexico now provides Medicaid funding for elective abortions.

• A Connecticut Superior court ruled that the state’s policy of paying for abortions only in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother violated the Connecticut ERA. “Since only women become pregnant, discrimination against pregnancy by not funding abortion…is sex-oriented discrimination,” the court ruled. The court ordered the state to pay for any abortion which a doctor deems advisable for any reason relating to “physical and/or psychological health” Doe v. Maher, 515 A.2d 134 (Conn Super. Ct. 1986).  This ruling was final.  As a result, women only have to claim that their unintended pregnancy is causing depression or stress in order to receive Medicaid funding for elective abortions.

• The Montana Supreme Court struck down a statute prohibiting non-physicians from performing abortions. The majority opinion cited state ERA language in art. II, sec. 4, of the state constitution in support of its holding (par. 72 of the opinion).  Article II, sec. 4, provides, in part, “Neither the state nor any person,…shall discriminate against any person in the exercise of his civil or political rights on account of . . . sex . .” (Armstrong v. State of Montana, 1999)

Using this same ‘sex discrimination’ logic, legal scholars have stated that the ERA would:

• Eliminate all abortion restrictions including the partial birth abortion ban, third trimester abortions, and parental notification of minors seeking abortions, and overturn the Hyde Amendment.

• Mandate expanded taxpayer funding for abortions.

• End conscience clauses for nurses, doctors and hospitals who do not want to participate in performing abortions. Courts do not allow conscience clauses in race discrimination, and they would not be able to allow it under the ERA.

• Threaten tax exemptions of private prolife religious schools who discourage abortion through their teaching practices.

• ERA would provide a new basis in the Constitution for the right to abortion. Roe v. Wade is based on weak reasoning founded on an unwritten “right to privacy” assumption.  As public sentiment grows in opposition to abortion, there is hope that the U.S. Supreme Court could reverse that dreadful decision.  However, if the ERA passes, that hope would be destroyed because the ERA would insert a written and defined right based on sex discrimination into the Constitution.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to email your state representative to urge him/her to oppose the ERA (SJRCA 4).

Read more:  Please oppose ERA (SJRCA-4): It strengthens abortion rights

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Like Medusa, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) has reared its chthonic head again, and this time it’s wearing a silly pink hat over all those snakes.

Here’s what the ERA actually says:

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Since the ERA says precisely nothing about women, why do feminists continue to claim that it’s all about women’s rights? In fact, the harm the ERA will cause will redound primarily to women.

What the ERA will do is prohibit the public recognition of sexual differentiation, and we all know who really wants to pretend that biological sex has no meaning.

Moreover, of which basic rights are women now deprived? The right to vote, assemble, associate, speak, petition their government, exercise their religion? Nope, we’ve got all those.

So, let’s peek under those pink hats and see what snakes are writhing about, restive and eager to emerge and strike:

• The ERA would be used to nullify or invalidate laws that restrict tax-funded abortion. In Doe v. Maher, the Connecticut Supreme Court stated, “Since only women become pregnant, discrimination against pregnancy by not funding abortions…is sex-oriented discrimination…The Court concludes that the regulation that restricts the funding of abortions…violates Connecticut’s Equal Rights Amendment.”The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) explains that multiple legal experts, including state supreme courts, have argued that the language of the ERA “makes it unconstitutional for…Medicaid programs to refuse to fund ‘medically necessary’ abortions (which just means abortions performed by licensed medical professionals) if procedures sought by men (e.g., prostate surgery) are funded.”

A New Mexico Supreme Court judge wrote that “there is no comparable restriction on medically necessary services relating to physical characteristics or conditions that are unique to men. Indeed, we can find no provision in the Department’s regulations that disfavor any comparable, medically necessary procedure unique to the male anatomy… [the restriction on funding abortions] undoubtedly singles out for less favorable treatment a gender-linked condition that is unique to women.” This judge neglected to mention the inconvenient presence of preborn babies that render abortion wholly different from any “medical procedure unique to the male anatomy.” Treating different conditions differently does not violate any commitment to equality, fairness, or justice.

• The ERA would be used to eliminate state laws that restrict abortion. The NRLC writes that “This same analysis—that limits on abortion are by definition a form of sex discrimination and therefore impermissible under ERA—will be used to invalidate laws requiring parental notification or consent for minors’ abortions; any federal or state restrictions even on partial-birth abortions or third-trimester abortions; and federal and state ‘conscience laws,’ which allow government-supported medical facilities and personnel—including religiously affiliated hospitals—to refuse to participate in abortions.”The ACLU writes, “Hundreds of bills that place limitations and restrictions on vital reproductive health care services [i.e., abortion] have been passed by Congress and state legislatures. The Equal Rights Amendment would provide another important weapon in the battle to resist this legislative onslaught aimed at destroying women’s rights to make their own reproductive decisions.”

• It would be used to grant unrestricted access to opposite-sex spaces and activities to men and women who pretend to be the sex they are not. Single-sex restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, shelters, semi-private hospital rooms, nursing home rooms, dormitories, colleges, athletic teams, fraternities, sororities, clubs, and organizations would become co-ed or risk federal lawsuits. Even mother-daughter/father-son/father-daughter events at public schools would be eradicated.

• It would be used to force women to register for the Selective Service and if the day should ever come when the draft is reinstated, to be drafted.

• It would give enormous new powers to the federal government that now belong to the states. Section II of the ERA states that “The Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article.” The ERA would give Congress the power to legislate on all those areas of law which include traditional differences of treatment on account of sex: marriage, property laws, divorce and alimony, child custody, adoptions, prison regulations, and insurance.For example, the Social Security System pays full-time homemaker “wives” 50 percent of their husband’s benefits over and above the check he receives. Upon their husbands’ deaths, widows receive the full benefits that their husbands had been receiving.  (The law also gives this benefit to a dependent husband, but nearly all dependent spouses are women.)
  
  Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her 1977 book “Sex Bias in the U.S. Code” that the concept of “dependent women, whose primary responsibility is to care for children and household … must be eliminated from the code if it is reflect the equality principle.”

Ratification history

To ratify this proposed amendment, “progressives” are attempting to circumvent deadlines that expired over three decades ago on the supposedly moribund ERA. The ERA, first introduced in 1972, had a seven-year deadline for ratification, which, by a congressional resolution was extended another three years.

The proposed Equal Rights Amendment needs 38 states for passage. By its final deadline in 1982, it had the approval of only 35 states, so supporters developed the “three-state strategy” which seeks to avoid returning the issue to all 50 states. In effect, Leftist lawmakers claim that since the ERA was extended once, deadlines can be extended in perpetuity. In other words, to Leftists legal deadlines, like other laws, can be ignored at their whim.

Leftist lawmakers defend their strategy to pass the ERA by comparing it to the passage of the Twenty-seventh amendment to the U.S. Constitution 203 years after it was proposed. They fail to mention, however, that the Twenty-seventh Amendment, unlike the ERA, did not have a ratification deadline.

Proponents of the ERA also argue that because the ERA ratification deadline was in the preamble rather than the body of the ERA, it’s essentially irrelevant and non-binding. But the Congressional Research Service explains the following:

In the case of the 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd Amendments, the “sunset” ratification provision was incorporated in the body of the amendment itself. For subsequent amendments, however, Congress determined that inclusion of the time limit within its body “cluttered up” the proposal. Consequently, all but one of the subsequently proposed amendments proposed later (the 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th, and the ERA) placed the limit in the preamble, rather than in the body of the amendment itself.

It’s important to note that prior to the ratification deadline, five states had sought to rescind their approval of the ERA. The Supreme Court of the United States was poised to take up their cases when the deadline took effect at which point the Court held that their cases were moot. If the deadline is now rendered moot by liberal lawmakers, one would assume that those states that sought to rescind their approval would be able to proceed with their pursuit of “rescission of acts of ratification.” In other words, it would seem that those states that wished to rescind their approval of the ERA would be able to pursue that effort because their pursuit ended based on the legal legitimacy of the ratification deadline.

Leftists have yet another effective weapon in their arsenal to crush culture: Just add the word “rights” to any legislation they want and presto change-o, they’ve got themselves a go-to soundbite.

Anyone who opposes co-ed restrooms becomes “anti-‘trans’ rights.” Just ignore the fact that objectively immutably biologically male persons have no right to access women’s private facilities.

Anyone who believes marriage has a nature central to which is sexual differentiation becomes “anti-‘gay’ rights.” Just ignore the fact that those who are erotically attracted to persons of their same sex have no intrinsic right to unilaterally redefine marriage by stripping it of its central constituent and most enduring, cross-cultural feature.

And anyone who opposes a wholly unnecessary amendment to the Constitution becomes “anti-women’s rights.” Just ignore the facts that the amendment doesn’t mention women and that there is not a single right of which women are deprived. Oh, and please ignore those snakes writhing under Medusa’s silly pink hat.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to email your state senator to urge him/her to oppose the ERA, SJRCA 4.

Listen to Laurie read this article in this podcast:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Medusas-Pink-Hat-the-ERA.mp3

Read more here, here and here.

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The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), SJRCA 75, has reared its ugly head once again in Illinois and your state representative needs to hear from you right away.

The Illinois General Assembly voted down the ERA thirteen times in the 70’s and 80’s. Since then, the sponsor files the bill and works the legislature to gather additional support. The support is too close for comfort.

Take ACTION: Please CLICK HERE to contact your state representative to ask him/her to vote AGAINST the ERA, SJRCA 75. It’s essential for us to let our state representatives know that this amendment harms women, their families and our society.

Your calls and emails are vital tools for fighting this outrageous proposal. You can also call your state representative to ask him/her to vote NO to SJRCA 75 by calling the Capitol switchboard number at: (217) 782-2000.

No one is opposed to “equal rights,” but the ERA is not about “equal rights” as proponents want you to believe. The ERA will remove all legal distinctions between sexes in at least 800 federal laws. This is according to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her report titled Sex Bias in the U.S. Code.  (For more information please click HERE.)

In other words, all federal, state and local laws, policies and regulations favoring women would be ruled unconstitutional under ERA. Laws including marriage, divorce, family-property law, child custody, adoptions, abortions, alimony, some criminal laws, age limits for marriage and the age of consent, gender specific bathrooms, single-sex private schools, prison regulations, lower insurance rates for women, veterans benefits, boy and girl scouts, and tax exemptions for single-sex schools are just a few laws that would be challenged if the ERA is passed.

SJRCA 75 passed the State Senate on May 22^nd, 2014, with a vote of 39 – 11 – 6.  State Representative Lou Lang (D-Skokie), the sponsor in the Illinois House, may call it for a vote as early as Wednesday.  He claims he’s very close to having the votes.

This lame duck veto session is scheduled to run through Thursday December 4^th. Please take a few minutes to make a call or send an email message to your state representative today to urge a NO vote on ERA.

Today many Americans are celebrating Giving Tuesday, a national event calling Americans to take action to better the lives of others.  This is a great way for us to celebrate the work and ministry of Illinois Family Institute. On this national day of giving, would you be willing to make your most generous tax-deductible contribution? Please donate to IFI today – on National Giving Tuesday..

Governor Patrick Quinn is again pushing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) — a bill that would eliminate gender distinctions and enshrine abortion as a constitutional right.  A committee hearing for this bill is scheduled for Wednesday.

ACTION: Please CLICK HERE to contact your state senator to ask them to vote AGAINST the Equal Rights Amendment, SJRCA 75. The ERA will not help women; instead it will harm women, their families, and our society.

You can also contact your state senator in Springfield by phone by calling the Capitol switchboard at (217) 782-2000.

SJRCA 75 is being sponsored by Illinois State Senators Heather Steans (D-Chicago), Mattie Hunter (D-Chicago), David Koehler (D-Peoria), Iris Martinez (D-Chicago), and Pat McGuire (D-Crest Hill)

History and Problems with the ERA
by Elise Bouc, State Director for Illinois Stop-ERA

The ERA claims to be a simple amendment that gives equal rights to women. In reality, the ERA will actually harm women, their families, and our society. The major problem with the ERA is its wording. It simply states

“Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex.”

In essence, women are not being guaranteed equal rights; rather gender is being removed as a legal characteristic on which to base distinctions. Thus any laws or policies that make a distinction based on gender would be unconstitutional under the ERA.

Because 18 states have passed state ERA’s, we have been able to see the damage that would be caused by a national ERA. This same wording in state ERA’s has been interpreted by courts to remove the critical protection of wife and child support, mandate state funding of elective abortions (as only women receive abortions, refusal to provide funding for abortions is seen as a form of sex discrimination), and legalize same-sex marriage.

Given the legal precedents, the passage of the federal ERA will lead to a loss of such protections as alimony, child custody, social security benefits (for women who choose to stay home with their children), exemption from the military draft registration, and exemption from front-line combat duty. A loss of such protections would harm women and their children.

Furthermore, the ERA would also transfer enormous power from state legislatures to the Federal government since it empowers Congress to enforce it. Such a transfer would create an imbalance of power between the states and the federal government and place sensitive issues under the rule of a national government that is far less responsive to individuals than the state legislatures. In addition, the ERA would empower the federal courts to determine the meaning of “equality of rights” and “sex.” In essence, we would be handing the state’s legislative power to Congress and the unelected judges of our federal courts.

Many legislators who are new to this amendment do not understand the reality of this amendment’s language and are easily led to believe that the ERA is a nice thing to do for women. It’s important that we help them understand the problems with this amendment. In addition, they need to know that women will not gain any additional benefits from the ERA. The laws that provide women with equal rights already exist. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution has been interpreted by the courts to prohibit gender-based discrimination. Other existing laws that provide women with equal rights cover virtually all areas of American life – education, employment, credit eligibility, housing, and public accommodations. Thus, the ERA will only harm women and not benefit them.

Supporters of the ERA have been attempting to pass various versions of this legislation since the 1920’s. The movement gained momentum in 1972 after the U.S. Senate and U.S. House passed the ERA and sent it to the states for ratification with a deadline that it must be passed by 38 states by 1979. Thirty-five states have since ratified the amendment (with 4 of those original states later rescinding their support for the ERA after they understood the true problems with the amendment, and a 5th state declaring that their ratification would not extend beyond 1979. Whether these states will be allowed to rescind their vote is unclear). In 1979, Congress extended the deadline to 1982 (although the vote to extend the deadline did not receive a 2/3 majority vote as should be required for a Constitutional amendment). The ERA failed to gain passage by any more states by 1982 and was subsequently declared a moot issue by the U.S. Supreme Court during consideration of a court case that challenged the extension of the time deadline.

Since then, the supporters of the ERA have developed a legal strategy in which they claim that if 3 more states will pass the ERA, then Congress can retroactively extend the time deadline and make the ERA a legally binding Constitutional Amendment. A resolution in support of this action is filed in Congress each session. As a result, we have seen renewed pressure on Illinois to pass the ERA (Illinois received a great deal of pressure to pass the ERA in the 1970’s and early 80’s but wisely never passed the amendment). There are many who believe that passage by Illinois will give the ERA the momentum needed to gain the other 2 necessary states. As a result, it’s imperative that we not allow Illinois to pass the ERA.

Tell Others!
Please inform your friends and family so that they can help in contacting our state legislators. And, most importantly, please contact your state representative as soon as possible and ask them to vote against the ERA.  If you have a new state representative, please take some time to educate them on the problems with the ERA. Many of them don’t know much about this amendment and are often told by those who support the ERA that “this is just a nice thing to do for women.” We need to help the legislators understand the realities of the ERA.

With our combined efforts and prayers, we were able to stop the ERA in years past, and I know that we can do so again.