I formerly interned with Justice Revival as their Advocacy and Mobilizing Coordinator for the #faith4era campaign.
Why does this matter?
Because the United States is one of the handful of democracies that don’t protect women in its constitution.
Why? Well, it’s a long story, but let me try and sum it for you.
In 1923, Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman drafted the Equal Rights Amendment that read “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the US or by any state on account of sex.”
It was introduced at congress at every session until it was approved by the house and senate in the early 1970s.
In order for an amendment to pass 2/3 of states must also ratify it— a seven-year ratification limit was passed.
Initially, the ERA had bipartisan support and many states ratified it in its first year. Progress then slowed due to the campaigning of white Christian women, namely Phyllis Schlafly, and at the time of the deadline only 35 of the need 38 states had ratified.
Schlafly worked hard to convince women that equality was undesirable and the biology of a woman proved the best place for a woman was in the home.
50 years later, the ERA hasn’t passed, meaning women are not fully protected by our constitution, even though 80% of citizens think we are.
This has severe consequences: there’s a reason progress is terribly slow for women’s rights. There have been cases of pregnancy discrimination, unequal pay and promotion, and domestic violence that have not gotten justice simply due to the fact that women are not protected in the constitution. (Read “Equal Means Equal” by Jessica Neuwirth)
Women are left vulnerable and consistently deal with injustice in our legal systems without the protection the ERA offers.
There’s good news though— in 2020 Virginia became the 38th state to ratify, and there’s precedent to remove the ratification deadline.
But not if enough people push their representatives to make it so.
50 years ago Christian women held back rights and progress for all women— today I want to be part of the movement of Christian women who repent of the past by fighting for the rights of all women.
If you have more questions about the ERA, you can learn about it here: https://www.eracoalition.org/
THIS IS WHERE I NEED YOUR HELP!
We need to contact our senators to support the ERA, here is a link where you can do this https://act.sojo.net/page/27321/action/1?ea.tracking.id=web
We also need to contact our senators asking them to co-sponsor SJ Res. 1– a motion to get the ratification deadline removed, this has passed the house but not the senate. I made a resist-bot prompt where you can easily do this:https://resist.bot/petitions/POOOMC
If you are clergy we are hoping to get to 1,000 signatures here: https://justicerevival.org/support-the-era/