The ERA: still a bad idea

NEARLY 25 years after the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, feminists and their political supporters, who now control Congress, are back at it. Last month, the constitutional measure, now dubbed the Women's Equality Amendment, was reintroduced in the Senate and House, and its prospects, according to one advocate, "are better now than they have been in a very, very long time."

But ERA Retro is doomed.

The amendment, which was born around the time that women were given the right to vote, was first introduced in Congress in 1923. For nearly 50 years, all subsequent Congresses had the good judgment to leave it buried in committee.

In 1971, the women's liberation movement burst on the scene and became the darling of the media. Its leaders demanded a gender-neutral society in which men and women would be treated exactly the same, no matter how reasonable it might be to respect differences between them. The amendment, which states that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex," was the chosen vehicle to achieve this goal.

A radical feminist organization called the National Organization for Women stormed the halls of Congress and forced a vote on the Equal Rights Amendment. Only 24 members in the House, and eight in the Senate, voted against it. On March 22, 1972, Congress sent the amendment to the states, which had seven years to ratify it.

The Equal Rights Amendment had a righteous name and incredible momentum. Who would oppose equal rights for women and men? Support was bipartisan, with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and then-Alabama Gov. George Wallace among its endorsers. Three presidents -- Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter -- signed on. Within the first year, 30 of the 38 states needed for ratification passed it, many without holding a hearing on the legislation. The Equal Rights Amendment was actively supported by most of the pushy women's organizations, a consortium of 33 women's magazines, numerous Hollywood celebrities and virtually all the media.

The opposition was totally outmanned. We had no Rush Limbaughs, no Fox News, no "no-spin zone" to challenge the need for the amendment. We had no Internet, no e-mail, no fax machines to help rally an opposition.

But the Equal Rights Amendment was rejected. We kicked off our Stop ERA campaign, launched in February 1972, with an article I wrote: "What's Wrong with Equal Rights for Women?" Over the next 10 years, nearly 100 issues of my Phyllis Schlafly Report were devoted to exposing the bad effects of the amendment.