Equal Rights Amendment Passes

[Caesar]

What would the results be if in 1978 the Equal Right's Amendment passed and was added to the Constitution?

[Orville_third]

Much the same as in OTL, actually. Much of the ERA's impact has been done through ordinary lawws- it just doesn't have the Constitution backing it up. (Though women still are discriminated against, much as African-Americans still are.)

I'm not sure how it would affect the Religious Right, who grew in power in part due to opposition ot the ERA.

[Magniac]

Little or no effect at all--if it passed before the cultural Right went to war against it, that is.

However, it would never pass once it became a kulturkampf issue. The US amendment process is too easy to stall.

Though perhaps some US constitutional scholars would come to complain about the ERA being an empty platitude, a feelgood Amendment which just expressed the bleeding obvious:

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

That's it. That's the whole controversial shebang.

Originally Posted by Orville_third

I'm not sure how it would affect the Religious Right, who grew in power in part due to opposition ot the ERA.

The likes of Schlafly being very talented creators of agitprop, they find something else to mobilise their troops against.

Also, ironically, there would probably arise conservative activist groups that invoked the ERA for their own causes (as per the 'conservative feminist' tendency) . There's a group called the Susan B. Anthony List that models itself as a pro-life version of Emily's List, f'rinstance.

[Mark E.]

We must remember some of the issues that killed it, and how those would have gone to the supreme court.

In all, the amendment came up two states short. The states that came closest were Iowa, Missouri and Nevada. It went to the voters in Iowa, and appeared to be so close nobody could predict the results. Had it passed there, one of the other two states may have ratified it and it would have become part of the constitution.

It failed in Iowa, not because of religious-right rhetoric, but because opponents came out with the argument that if you could not discriminate by sex, you might eliminate girls' basketball in high school, since you could not keep boys off the teams.

That's right, the issue of girls' high school basketball killed it in one of only two states needed for ratification.

[Seraph]

wouldn't a bigger more serious issue that was considered for the timewas that women would now have to register for the selective service and possibly having to be in direct combat?

[Chengar Qordath]

Originally Posted by Seraph

wouldn't a bigger more serious issue that was considered for the timewas that women would now have to register for the selective service and possibly having to be in direct combat?

Among other things. The problem the ERA ran into was that unlike most other forms of discrimination (race, religion, etc) there actually are significant differences between men and women and the law and society have to be capable of accounting for that. The amendment's wording is simple enough that it could easily be read as "No distinctions between the genders ever" which would just cause all kinds of problems; IMO the Supreme Court would have interpreted it to allow common sense exceptions though.

[Mark E.]

Originally Posted by Seraph

wouldn't a bigger more serious issue that was considered for the timewas that women would now have to register for the selective service and possibly having to be in direct combat?

Actually, that issue was brought up in the seventies. Conservatives suggested the ERA could be a lesbian conspiracy to draft women into the military.

[Super_Cool]

If it passed, would all bathrooms in government run buildings, like schools, been unisex?

[RogueBeaver]

Somewhat surprisingly, Nixon supported the ERA, though his Oval Office tapes tell a rather different story. Especially on the issue of abortion as it relates to biracial children.