Home
In this issue
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Jan. 31, 2006 / 2 Shevat, 5766

Equal rights for whom?

By Kathryn Lopez


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Most of America's young girls typically don't get to celebrate Phyllis Schlafly during women's history month, but they should. The conservative Schlafly not only had the right idea when she fought the Equal Rights Amendment during the 70s, but predictions she made back then are still accurate today.


Schlafly was head of the National Committee to Stop ERA. And stop it she did — the U.S. Constitution was not amended. She argued that a federal Equal Rights Amendment was not necessary, claiming that, "the fact is that women already enjoy every constitutional right that men enjoy and have enjoyed equal employment opportunity since 1964."


Even though Congress overwhelmingly approved the ERA in 1972 — passing the House 354-to-23 and the Senate 84-to-8 — and the amendment would subsequently be ratified by more than 30 states (but not by the 38 its supporters needed), Schlafly fought the nonsensical Equal Rights Amendment to its death in 1982.


While explaining why the big push for the federal Equal Rights Amendment ultimately failed, in her book "Feminist Fantasies" (Spence, 2003) Schlafly reprinted some of her old objections: "ERA would put 'gay rights' into the U.S. Constitution because the word in the amendment is 'sex,' not 'women.' Eminent authorities have stated that ERA would legalize the granting of marriage licenses to same-sex couples and generally implement the gay and lesbian agenda."


And guess what? In the latest example of Schlafly's prescience, on Jan. 20, 2006, a Maryland court struck down the state's same-sex marriage ban based on the Old Line State's Equal Rights Amendment. As Jessica Echard, who works with Schlafly at Eagle Forum (the public-policy nonprofit Schlafly heads) points out, "The Maryland ERA language is very similar to the federal ERA, which refers to no discrimination based on 'sex' not 'women,' Using the term 'sex' demands same-sex marriage because banning it would be denying rights based on sex."


Agree or disagree with her politics, Phyllis Schlafly was right — the Hawaii supreme court was the first, in 1993, to rule that its state ERA mandated same-sex marriage.


BUY THE BOOKS


Click HERE.


Click HERE.

(Discounted prices. Sales help fund JWR.).


At the time of the big ERA fight, of course, you might have thought she was nuts. "Hey, Phyllis, your sheet is showing," a Doonesbury cartoon "joked." Famously, during a debate at Illinois State University in 1973, feminist mother Betty Friedan angrily declared, "I consider you a traitor to your sex, and Aunt Tom." Freidan said that she wanted to burn Schlafly at the stake. For Schlafly, Freidan's fury came in handy. As Donald T. Critchlow recalls in "Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism" (Princeton, 2005), Schlafly replied, "I'm glad you said that because it just shows the intemperate nature of proponents of the ERA."


The Schlafly-was-right point about the ERA and marriage is worth noting — not just for historical-accuracy reasons but because the Left keeps trying to revive the old loser. As late as last year, the ERA was reintroduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives and in the Senate.


Sheila Cole, now a senior House staffer, wasn't alive yet when Schlafly was first taking on the ERA, but worked with Schlafly as executive director of Eagle Forum in the late 1990s. Cole remembers, "One of the things I learned from watching Phyllis is that you always have to think like a chess player when dealing with the radical feminists."


Nowadays, Eagle Forum is content that the Equal Rights Amendment is dead as a viable national movement, despite Ted Kennedy's hopes (the ERA is his bill in the Senate) for its revival. Now Schlafly & Co. are more specifically concerned with protecting marriage — in part from the damage done by state ERAs. Meanwhile, when Women's History Month comes around in March, how about a lesson starring a wise woman like Schlafly?

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Comment by clicking here.

Archives

© 2006, Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works