Originally Posted by john w k

SEE: Supporters look to get Equal Rights Amendment ratified


If you are one of the few who is aware of how the Fourteenth Amendment has been repeatedly used by radicals to undermine the limited intentions and beliefs under which the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted --- such limited intentions being to forbid the enforcement of any state legislation based upon race color or previous condition of slavery --- then you will also be one of the few who will also understand how the wording of the Equal Rights Amendment [re-introduced in the House and Senate] if adopted, will open the door for our Washington Establishment to impose countless new federal regulations and rules within every State in the Union which will make our Tenth Amendment and our constitutional guarantee to federalism meaningless.


In fact, if the ERA were ever adopted it would make existing federal regulations under the commerce clause look insignificant to the mountain of regulatory powers which would be assumed and enforced under the ERA.


For example, homosexuals who want every state in the union to recognize and sanction homosexual marriage would find victory under the ERA as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned its own state's ban on gay marriage, saying it violated the state's ERA!


How about homosexuals, transsexuals and lesbians who want to compel property and business owners to engage in unwanted contracts and associations with them? No problem if the ERA is adopted! Our dictatorial S.C. will find artful words alleging such protection is found in the ERA, thereby crushing the unalienable right of property and business owners to reject unwanted contracts and associations with homosexuals, transsexuals and lesbians.


Make no mistake, just as the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] was often referred to as the lawyers full employment Act, so too would the ERA be dubbed another lawyers full employment act if it were ever made part of our federal Constitution!


Although the amendment is now being pushed as a way to ensure “equal pay for equal work’’ keep in mind the proposed amendment has little or nothing to do with any existing state laws asserted to impose unequal pay based upon gender! The real mission of today’s ERA backers has more to do with imposing their will upon the private sector, and more importantly, has everything to do with subjugating the unalienable rights of business and property owners. The object is to overturn the unalienable right of employer and employee, property owner and guest, to mutually agree in their contracts and associations, and compel business owners and property owners to enter into unwanted contracts and associations with homosexuals, transsexuals and lesbians, not to mention establishing homosexual marriage rights in every state in the union!


The ERA was originally introduced in 1923 but was not sent to the States for ratification until 1972, and then contained a seven-year time limit stipulation for ratification. A sufficient number of states did not ratify the amendment by the deadline and Congress voted to extended the dead line a few more years, while some states who had ratified the amendment and realizing the unintended consequences connected to the wording of the ERA started the process to rescind their approval. In extending the time period for ratification, Congress wrote language in the extension to forbid States to rescind their ratification. But five states voted to withdraw their approval for the amendment and several others were preparing to do likewise before the extension expired.


The ERA was officially defeated on June 30, 1982 and the SCOTUS later dismissed an ERA case as being moot because the expiration date had come and gone without a sufficient number of ratifying states.


ERA activists are now claiming that a recent ratification of one of the first12 amendments sent to the states in 1789 for ratification having been adopted in 1992, which now requires a roll-call vote before Congress can grant itself a pay raise, is enough to claim only three states are needed to make the ERA part of our Constitution. Of course the claim is without foundation. Keep in mind the pay raise amendment adopted in 1992 had no time limit stipulation while the ERA did in fact contain a stipulated time limit for ratification. In addition, a number of states voted to rescind their ratification of the ERA before the necessary number of ratifying states were reached which means approximately nine more states, not three, would have been necessary to ratify the amendment before its time limit expired.

In summary, the so called equal rights amendment is not about equal rights. It has become a means to subjugate the unalienable right of people to mutually agree in their contracts and associations and is geared to give homosexuals, transsexuals and lesbians a distinctive advantage [the threat of legal action over others] to compel unwilling parties to submit to their economic demands and this does not even take into account the extraordinary regulatory power over business and industry the federal government would assume within every state of the union if the ERA were ever adopted.

The ERA and its wording is also viewed as a clever step to enforcing homosexual marriages in every state, and perhaps the sanctioning of unfettered taxpayer funded abortions throughout the united States. I expect its supporters are well aware of Florida’s newly elected Charlie Crist’s liberal leanings with regard to these issues, and is why the ERA crowd has decided to bring their dog and pony show to the State of Florida.

JWK

Originally Posted by frankdialogue

Originally Posted by Phillybud

It all boils down to your hostility against Homosexual, Bisexual, Lesbian, and Transgendered people ... doesn't it?! American citizens have legal protection against discrimination in employment, housing, public accomodation, education, credit, etc etc ad infinitum -- but you feel these civil rights protections should not be extended to American citizens who are also part of the gay community.

You don't have any gay friends, do you?

Originally Posted by john w k

I suggest you study what our lower state courts have stated, our lower state supreme courts have stated, our united States Supreme Court has stated, our Congress of the United States has stated, and even the American Law Review has stated with regard to the most fundamental rule of constitutional law to be followed when questions arise as to what the Constitution means. What they all point out is summarized as follows:

Originally Posted by john w k

Seems to me unlike other “governments” our governments, state and federal, were created to protect the inalienable rights of all individuals, so long as the exercise of such rights does not infringe upon the inalienable rights of another.

Why do you have such a problem with people being free to mutually agree in their business contracts and associations?

Originally Posted by frankdialogue