CWA Claims ERA Would Strip Women of Rights...Eventually State Their Worry Over Same-Sex Marriages

If Matt Barber's ladies over at CWA were trying to gather attention with their headline, then they certainly succeeded. What woman wouldn't stop and read something with the heading, "Equal Rights Amendment Strips Women of Their Rights?" If you're asking yourself, "don't we already have an equal rights amendment," you're right...but this version seeks to fill in the gaps that the 1964 legislation left. With the usual alarmist style writing, the author (Sarah Rode) opens her article with this paragraph...

"In a debate where "equal" means repressive and "right" means agenda,
Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) is leading the charge to demand
a constitutional amendment that will "finally guarantee women equality." The
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) endeavors to remove all differences - social,
biological and sexual - between males and females, while granting enormous
flexibility to increasingly activist judges to interpret the amendment as they
deem appropriate. Several states that have already ratified a state ERA are
finding that they've done little more than pave the way for homosexual marriage,
federally funded abortion, the inclusion of women in the draft and co-ed
prisons. This amendment is not about rights; it is about the promotion of a
gender-neutral agenda through the suppression of natural differences between men
and women."

First, the conservatives (men and women alike) in 1964 would hardly have used the term "repressive." Frankly, that's how they wanted things to stay...women at home, barefoot and pregnant...pick a catch-phrase. So, I find it rather ironic that a conservative women's group would now be calling an equal rights bill repressive. Moving on, I see the usual buzz words and phrases..."activist judges," "abortion," and the like, but the most telling phrase is, without a doubt, "Several states that have already ratified a state ERA are finding they've done little more than pave the way for homosexual marriage."

There you have it, something as basic as an equal rights bill or amendment is being linked with the dastardly institution of same-sex marriage. The article itself, which I found to be rambling and redundant, makes a few points about the current proposition having overlapping elements. Inevitably, though, the author comes back to her key issues of abortion and same-sex marriage.

It shouldn't take a literal act of Congress to allow for these basic human rights, and I say "human" because this honestly isn't a gender related issue. Same-sex marriage and its related rights and responsibilities is something that should be made available to everyone. Notice I mentioned the responsibilities that come with marriage...something the fundies insist homosexuals aren't interested in...because that's truly what we want. Bottom line...the fundies are now going to twist the intent of this legislation because it may allow for something they are completely set against. Twist all you want, ladies...but we see what you're trying to do and we won't allow you to get away with it.