by Roberta Madden, published in the Asheville Citizen-Times, December 29, 2019
For the past five years, North Carolina women have urged the General Assembly to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The US Constitution requires three-fourths of the states must ratify an amendment in order to put it into the Constitution. That’s 38 states, and 37 have already done it.
Now it looks like our neighboring state will beat us to it. Virginia’s recent legislative election opens the gate to ratification of the ERA, which will guarantee constitutional equality for all women and men.
This past spring, by just one vote, the Virginia legislature failed to ratify the amendment, whereupon women organized to elect strong pro-ERA majorities in both chambers. Ratification is virtually certain when legislators convene in January.
Why is this amendment so scary that it has taken decades to win approval by 38 states? The ERA simply reads: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” That’s language very similar to the suffrage amendment. How scary is that? [more….]
