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

I am so glad there is a group or 2 left we can legally discriminate against. Gypsies look out you are next !

Perhaps I am wrong but you seem to portray the word discriminate in a distasteful way. Do you not “discriminate” in choosing your friends? Does one not “discriminate” in choosing their mate? Freedom to “discriminate” as one may choose is in fact an unalienable right of mankind. And, the freedom for people to mutually agree in their contracts and association is likewise an unalienable right of mankind. Does it really bother you that people ought to be left free to discriminate?


JWK

In 1944, yes 1944, both parties, the Democrats & the Republicans, wrote the ERA into their party platforms. In 1947 Dennis Cardinal Dougherty wrote a letter to the Senate Judicary subcommittee in support of the ERA which was read into the record. Ironically, Eleanor Roosevelt was against it.

__________________

All I said was that intellectuals are like the Mafia, they only kill their own.

Woody Allen
Stardust Memories

Gypsy is a misnomer. It comes from the word "Egyptian" and it was used under English Law to describe anyone who didn't have a home. Many ethnic Irish, Scots, and English were labeled by courts as "Gypsies" because they were homeless, and some were sent to America as slaves.

Roma is the proper term for "ethnic Gypsies".

__________________

All I said was that intellectuals are like the Mafia, they only kill their own.

Woody Allen
Stardust Memories

Damn those people, why can't they just go somewhere else!!!!


Really need some sleep....

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TAFKATLB(TheArtistFormerlyKnowAsTheLoveBelow)

I'm actually hoping they make homosexual marriage mandatory.

Seriously though, given the utter farce that straight people in this country have made of the "sanctity" of marriage, there is nothing gay people could do that would make the act any more meaningless.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention! I'll be supporting it and anyone who supports it.

Why have you misquoted my words in your above post?

I was simply stating some facts concerning one identifiable group which is very much behind the ERA and what their goal is.


You seem to miss the point I was making which is, people being left free to mutually agree in their contracts and associations. I thought I was clear in expressing my objections, a primary one being government force being used to violate one of mankind’s most important unalienable rights.


Generally speaking, I oppose legislation which interferes with people’s right to mutually agree in their contracts and associations, whether in business dealings or their private lives. Of course, this would take into account that a single person or two people mutually agreeing to impinge upon another’s unalienable rights must, and should be, legislatively forbidden.


I also firmly agree with the legislative intent of our federal Constitution and following the rule of law which forbids government force to be used to “discriminate” based upon race or color [Black Code Law], and also forbids the right to vote to be denied based upon sex.


In addition I believe in federalism, our Constitution’s guarantee to a big tent system in which the people of the various States have retained all powers not delegated to the federal government by our federal Constitution, that if the people of Massachusetts decide they want to recognize and sanction homosexual marriages, that is their guaranteed right via the Tenth Amendment; that if the people of Massachusetts also decide to allow abortions on demand and at taxpayer expense, that too is their guaranteed right via federalism, our Constitution’s plan. But I also approve that if the people of Idaho decide to not recognize or sanction homosexual marriages, and they decide to place regulatory restriction on abortion and not fund them via taxpayer expense, they too are well within our Constitution’s plan of federalism to do so!


Federalist Paper No. 45 tells us:

And keep in mind our federal Constitution’s first ten amendments were intended to make our federal government’s limited powers crystal clear which is spelled out in the Resolution of the First Congress Submitting Twelve Amendments to the Constitution; March 4, 1789



Now isn’t that something? Our first ten amendments to our federal Constitution were specifically intended to further restrict the government created under our federal Constitution and prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers. The unadulterated truth is, the first ten amendments to our federal Constitution were never intended to apply to or restrict the sovereignty of the various States or people therein nor interfere with their constitutionally established state governments.


It is also important to note that Madison states the following with regard to adopting the Tenth Amendment and federalism:



And so, the very reason for adopting the first ten amendments to our federal Constitution was to preserve federalism, our Constitution’s big tent system.


The amendment in question would sabotage and overturn federalism and place extraordinary powers in the hands of our federal government. Why you have focused on the marriage question is beyond me. Do you have a problem with federalism as many of our political party leaders do, and who wish to impose their whims and fancies upon the people in every state in our union?



Regards,
JWK

" I believe that there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." ___ Madison Elliot`s Debates, vol. III, page 87

Yeah! If people want to have restrictive covenants that prevent Jews, Chinamen, or <shudder> the Irish from living in their neighborhood, opening businesses in their buildings, and marrying their daughters, they should be able to do so, gosh darnit! This is America!




As for the rest, you ignore the actual text of the 14th amendment in favor of the narrow interpretation that your political ideology requires.

The fourteenth amendment does not say "any person of color", or add to the end "...on the basis of race or color." It says "any person."

The fifth section of the 14th amendment also gives Congress the power to enforce this. In other words, Congress has the power to enforce equal protection of the laws for all persons. That's what it did when it passed the ERA.

You clearly want the U.S. to go back to the federalism of 1789, but many of the constitutional amendments have shifted that balance of power, especially the 14th.