The Hobby Lobby shock: it's high time for an equal rights amendment [View all]

[theHandpuppet]

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/jul/11/hobby-lobby-birth-control-contraception-supreme-court-sexism-constitution

The Hobby Lobby shock: it's high time for an equal rights amendment
The supreme court's decision on birth control provisions in favor of religious corporate owners shows the constitution still does not protect women's rights – which were overdue in the 1970s
By Liz Holtzman and Jessica Neuwirth
theguardian.com, Friday 11 July 2014

(excerpts)
In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer — noted that the price of contraceptives discourages their use by many women. She pointed out that an IUD costs the equivalent of a month’s pay for women working full time at the minimum wage. According to a range of different studies, women of childbearing age spend between 40% and 69% more for out-of-pocket health costs than men of the same age. In truth, the Hobby Lobby decision will cause much more damage to women — 51% of the population — than a contrary result would have caused to religious freedom. 

The supreme court could not have reached its decision if we had had an equal rights amendment in the US constitution. Depriving women of coverage for health services they need is sex discrimination, plain and simple. Also, the religious protections the court relied on were statutory, and a statute cannot override a constitutional provision. An equal rights amendment would have forced the court to consider thoroughly the harm to women of depriving them of contraception, and to recognize women’s fundamental right to freedom from sex discrimination. Unsurprisingly, the term “sex discrimination” appears nowhere in the court’s decision.

Although the constitution should be read to protect women against discrimination – women, after all, are “persons” entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment – the standard for protection against sex discrimination is not as stringent as it should be. And for some members of the court, women don’t seem to count as constitutional “persons,” even though corporations do. Justice Scalia, for example, has said: “Certainly the constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't.”...

...Although the 1972 effort to adopt the equal rights amendment failed, US Representative Carolyn Maloney has introduced a new equal rights amendment that would finally add the word “women” into the constitution. And Senator Ben Cardin and Representative Jackie Speier have introduced legislation to resuscitate the 1972 proposal.

Those who think we don’t need the new amendment may want to think again in light of the Hobby Lobby and the Wheaton College decisions. For those who think we can’t get the equal rights amendment, ask why not. It’s high time for it — simple justice, long overdue....

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/jul/11/hobby-lobby-birth-control-contraception-supreme-court-sexism-constitution