Citizens Project

The Equal Rights Amendment: the time is now!

16th May, 2011

by Cynthia Nimerichter

Several weeks ago, the Denver Post ran an article about the Equal Rights Amendment and the fact that it has never been ratified. In the 1970s, I marched in the streets in support of this measure but to date only 35 states ratified the proposed constitutional amendment. To become part of the U.S. Constitution, three more states would need to vote in favor of it.

I mentioned to a young friend that I had not given much thought to the ERA in many years. My 30-something friend’s response? “What is the ERA?” My friend is very politically savvy and more up-to-date than I am on legislation dealing with discrimination. But her response brought home to me that if the ERA is to ever pass, members of the old guard, including me, need to educate a new generation.

The ERA is fairly simple. Here is the proposal in full:
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.

This language would guarantee that the rights affirmed by the U.S. Constitution are held equally by all citizens without regard to sex. Sex would be considered a suspect classification, as race currently is.

The Equal Rights Amendment was written in 1923 by Alice Paul, a leader of the woman suffrage movement and a lawyer. It was introduced in Congress in the same year and subsequently reintroduced in every Congressional session for half a century. In 1972 it was finally sent to the states. The deadline for ratification has long passed but a bill is in Congress now, introduced in March of 2011, which would remove the deadline and allow the amendment to be accepted when three more states pass it.

Women have made great strides in recent decades. Yet women earned just 75 percent of men’s earnings in 2009. As stated in the article in the Denver Post, “In 1920, the 19th Amendment finally gave women the vote. Ninety years later, women still have to fight to prove we deserve the basic rights men simply inherit at birth.”

This was reinforced when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in September, 2010 in a speech at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law that the Constitution does not guarantee equal rights for women.

Colorado has a state ERA and we are one of the states to have ratified the national ERA.  An Opinion Research Corporation poll commissioned in 2001 by the ERA Campaign Network shows that nearly all U.S. adults – 96% – believe that male and female citizens should have equal rights. The vast majority – 88% – also believe that the U.S. Constitution should make it clear that these rights are supposed to be equal. However, nearly three-quarters of the respondents – 72% – mistakenly assume that the Constitution already includes such a guarantee.

It is clear that the citizens of the United States overwhelmingly support a constitutional guarantee of equal rights on the basis of sex, and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment will achieve that goal.

After all, this is 2011. Can any reasonable person be against full equal rights for women? It does not seem possible but consider this:  recently the Virginia Senate voted to become the 36th state to ratify the ERA. Days later, the bill died in the House of Delegates-in a subcommittee of seven men.

Cynthia Nimerichter is a motivational speaker, author and recovering attorney. She lives in Colorado Springs.

States which have not ratified the Equal Rights Amendment include:

Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Louisiana
Mississippi
Missouri
Nevada
North Carolina
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Utah
Virginia

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

30th June, 2010

With the recent developments regarding the United States’ military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, which effectively bans openly gay and lesbian citizens from serving in the military, it is an appropriate time to examine where the policy came from, where it currently stands, and the possibilities for its future.

Leading up to his 1992 presidential election victory, Bill Clinton promised to end the ban on gays and lesbians in the US military.  However, once in office President Clinton encountered fierce resistance from Congress.  During the Congressional debates, Dr. Gregory Herek, a respected social psychologist with over 15 years of research in topics of sexual orientation, spoke on the potential consequences of lifting the ban on gays and lesbians in the military.  His ultimate conclusion was that “the research data show that there is nothing about lesbians and gay men that makes them inherently unfit for military service, and there is nothing about heterosexuals that makes them inherently unable to work and live with gay people in close quarters.”  Despite these affirmations, President Clinton was unable to persuade congress, and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was formed as a compromise.  This was, at any rate, progress, because it allowed gay and lesbian troops to serve in the military, as long as they kept their sexual orientation a secret.

Every year, a bill is used to decide the budget of the US Department of Defense, and the 2010 version includes an amendment that would eliminate the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law.  This was voted on by the House of Representatives on May 27, and it passed on a 234-194 vote.  The Senate Armed Forces Committee also voted on the bill, and it passed there with a 16-12 vote.

The biggest argument against passing the bill is that its potential effects on the military are unknown.  The Pentagon is currently undergoing a review that was commissioned after President Obama’s State of the Union Address, where he discussed his desire to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  The goal of the review is to determine whether or not the repeal would affect the “military’s standards of readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion and recruitment and retention,” and to offer strategies on how to implement the law if it was passed.  The results of this review are not due until December, so many Representatives who were not in favor of repeal said that they were reluctant to agree to the bill without first knowing the results of the Pentagon review.

What is known about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is there are many negative consequences.  Apart from its obvious discriminatory nature, which can alienate troops and force them to lie, it is very expensive.  A 2006 study showed that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has cost the US over $363 million dollars in investigations and training replacements.  Over 13,000 people have been kicked out of the military since 1993 due to their sexual orientation, which includes troops with critical skills such as Arabic linguists, fighter pilots and doctors, whose skills are invaluable during a time in which the US is involved in two wars.  There are over thirty countries that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, including Israel, England, Canada, Australia, and Spain.

There are still many obstacles in the way before the repealing of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell can be passed.  The next step is that the Senate must vote on the bill, which could occur this summer.  If it were to pass in the Senate, the president, the defense secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff all must sign off on it as well.  This might be a very significant obstacle because President Obama has threatened to veto the bill because it contains money for defense projects he deems wasteful.

Despite these obstacles, there is more hope than ever that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law will finally be eliminated.  As Dr. Herek mentioned, there is absolutely nothing that prevents gays and lesbians from serving as well as heterosexuals.  And with numerous examples of countries successfully embracing gays and lesbians into their militaries, isn’t it time that the United States, a self-professed powerful force for good in the world, did so as well?  As someone close to me always says, there have always been gay and lesbian troops in the military, and I believe that it is long past due to finally allow them to serve their country openly and freely.

Texas Board of Education re-writes history

19th March, 2010

Educators, historians, journalists and commentators all over the country are decrying the decision by the Texas Board of Education to approve highly politicized revisions to public school curriculum.

Thanks to the Texas Freedom Network for this round-up:

A San Francisco Chronicle columnist sharply criticizes the State Board of Education’s rewriting of Texas social studies standards.

San Francisco Chronicle

Historians on Tuesday criticized proposed revisions to the Texas social studies curriculum, saying that many of the changes are historically inaccurate and that they would affect textbooks and classrooms far beyond the state’s borders.

Washington Post

The San Antonio Express-News says the “latest example of SBOE incompetence springs from the same source as other outrages: The inability of social conservatives on the state board to distinguish between ideology and education.”

San Antonio Express-News

Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, director of the U.S. Latino & Latina World War II Oral History Project at the University of Texas School of Journalism, says the Texas State Board of Education apparently wasn’t listening as witnesses came from across the state to urge members to consider the inclusion of more Hispanic Americans in social studies curriculum standards.

Austin American-Statesman

Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart have now, in their characteristic ways, weighed in on the Texas State Board of Education.

Colbert Report

Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Religious Right Offensive on Public Education in Texas

15th February, 2010

Citizens Project has been following the dangerous extremism on the Texas Board of Education over the last several months. It exploded in the national press yesterday with this cover story in The New York Times Magazine.

The injection of partisan politics into education went so far that at one point another Republican board member burst out in seemingly embarrassed exasperation, “Guys, you’re rewriting history now!”

Citizens Project will keep monitoring local schools to prevent this from happening here. Please let us know if you hear of any inappropriate politicizing we should be aware of.

Thanks to our friends at the Texas Freedom Network for fighting the Texas takeover.

Houston voters reject anti-gay message and elect city’s first gay mayor

13th December, 2009

Houston became the largest U.S. city to elect an openly gay mayor, with voters handing a solid victory to City Controller Annise Parker after a hotly contested runoff.

Houston Chronicle

New hate crimes law is hard-won progress for freedom and equality

29th October, 2009

Matthew Shepard

Today we celebrate a victory for the ideals of freedom and equality as promised in our United States Constitution.  After a 10-year fight, our nation at last has a hate crimes law that punishes the uniquely heinous nature of hate crimes, which have the chilling effect of creating fear among entire classes of people.  Thanks to Bruce DeBoskey of the Mountain States Anti-Defamation League for articulating this in an Op-Ed in Monday’s Gazette:

It has been 11 years since Matthew Shepard was beaten, tied to a lonely Wyoming fence, and left to die because his attackers hated gay men. That same year, James Byrd, Jr., was dragged to his death behind a pickup truck in Jasper, Texas, a victim of a racially motivated crime. One of Byrd’s attackers wore tattoos including the image of a black man hanging from a tree.

Shepard and Byrd were not the only victims of those horrible crimes. In both cases, the murderers were not simply committing a crime against Shepard or Byrd; they were sending a chilling message to everyone who shared the characteristics of the victims — to every American who is gay or black. “You, and anyone like you, are not welcome here,” the perpetrators said through their hateful violence. “You, and anyone like you, are not safe here.” In fact, they were sending that message to all Americans.  Read more.

Signing the legislation yesterday, President Obama said,

“You understood that we must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones, but to break spirits — not only to inflict harm, but to instill fear,” Mr. Obama said. “You understand that the rights afforded every citizen under our Constitution mean nothing if we do not protect those rights — both from unjust laws and violent acts.” Read more.

This legislation does not punish thoughts, as conservative opponents of the legislation charge. It punishes a distinctive type of crime.  Focus on the Family earnestly opposed hate crimes legislation with the baffling claim that the bill would silence religious speech.  A July “CitizenLink” email states,

And, pastors who preach against homosexuality could end up prosecuted if they are found to have “induced” a hate-crime against a self-identified homosexual by preaching from the Bible.

It seems surprising that Focus would not understand the difference between preaching a belief and inciting violence.  In interpreting the First Amendment, our courts have made careful distinctions in this area.  With Neo-Nazis regularly demonstrating publicly without being prosecuted, can Focus really believe pastors will be arrested under this law for preaching that homosexuality is a sin? It sounds far fetched, but such rhetoric is consistent with their shrill denunciations of gay marriage as a threat to heterosexual marriage and their claims that equal rights laws threaten religious freedom (even with religious exemptions). Perhaps their supporters thought Focus went too far with these hate crimes statements, since this was the last such message they sent out. Regardless, in this case reason and fairness have won out.

Citizens Project thanks our elected representatives who supported this important legislation and will continue to fight locally for true religious freedom and equal rights for all.

Dear Focus, Please stop telling other people who they should love.

26th October, 2009

Focus on the Family is trying again to enforce their interpretation of the bible through public policy. This, from the Gazette:

Last year, Focus on the Family donated nearly $450,000 to support a California proposition outlawing gay marriage.

This year, the Colorado Springs-based organization is setting its sights on Maine, but the outlay is a lot smaller — both because Maine is a lot smaller, and because of the economy.

read more…

Support Equality in Maine here.

Equal Opportunity Admissions Policy Upheld

29th September, 2009

Last year Colorado turned the tide on opponents of equal opportunity by rejecting a ballot measure that would have banned Affirmative Action. Here’s another bit of good news for equality, from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights:

Federal District Court Upholds University of Texas Equal Opportunity Admissions Policy

September 25, 2009 – Posted by Whitney Gusby

In a major victory for equal opportunity, a federal district court ruled in favor of the University of Texas at Austin’s current admissions policy, in which race is only part of the consideration process for students’ admission to the university.

Read more here.