Scalia On Equal Rights For Women - No!

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in an interview for the magazine California Lawyer on January 3, 2011:

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we've gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?

Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. ... But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that's fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don't like the death penalty anymore, that's fine. You want a right to abortion? There's nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn't mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

But it's true: the U.S. Constitution doesn't protect women from discrimination. That's why an amendment to the Constitution is required. The U.S.-written constitution of Afghanistan mandates more rights for women than does the U.S. Constitution.

Supporters of the war piously claim that one of the aims is to improve the rights of women in Afghanistan -- ironic, no?

June 5, 1913: the running of the Epsom Derby. The favorite was Anmer, owned by King George V. During the race, a young English woman named Emily Davison rushed out in front of the pack in an effort to stop the horse and place a Suffragette flag on the king's horse. The resulting collision fractured her skull.

That was part of the story of women's struggle just for the right to vote, resulting in the U.S. in the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. That's the only right established by the Constitution that women have. Isn't it time for an Equal Rights Amendment? Or rather, isn't it decades past time?

According to a Kaili Joy Gray article in Daily Kos: A poll conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation in 2001 found:

• 96 percent of Americans believe men and women should have equal rights
• 72 percent of Americans believe the Constitution already specifies equal rights for men and women (it doesn't)
• 88 percent of Americans believe the Constitution should specify equal rights for men and women

The Equal Rights Amendment has been re-introduced at the beginning of each new session of Congress for nearly 30 years. Thanks to the controversy surrounding Justice Scalia's January article, this time it may even pass.