Florida Can Create Equality Under the Law

Florida Can Create Equality Under the Law

Join me in supporting equal rights for all.

You may have noticed that I don’t make a lot of public statements about politics. That doesn’t mean I don’t have convictions, ideals and concerns. It means I typically make my convictions, ideals and concerns known by writing to elected officials, donating to organizations whose causes I support and making sure I vote in each and every election for which I am eligible.

My reason for staying quiet about my views is professional. I want everyone to feel comfortable at my table. I have had clients say to me at the end of a session, “Thank you for not bringing politics into our work together.” They tell me that many professionals pepper their readings with opinions about world events. This doesn’t seem like a helpful practice to me.

Today, though, I am breaking my silence for an important issue that feels too obvious not to mention.

Here in the United States women still do not enjoy the protection of equal rights under the law.

Back in the early 1980s I had a job with the National Women’s Political Caucus campaigning for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Our efforts were unsuccessful, by a narrow margin.

Until recently, I had thought that the Equal Rights Amendment was a dead issue. I had also come to believe that perhaps it was no longer necessary. It seemed to me that women had made so many strides forward that perhaps we had achieved that equality after all.

I could not have been more wrong on either point.

The advancements that women have made in the past thirty years are not at all protected by the constitution. Anything we have earned can easily and lawfully be taken away.

There is one memory that is seared indelibly in my brain from my ERA campaigning days. A woman chose not to sign my petition because “her husband allowed her to be equal”. She had no comprehension that, in true equality, there would be no person who could allow or disallow her equality.

I think of my female friends and colleagues, and my daughter. To me their value is equal to those of my male friends and colleagues, my son, and the many men whom I love. I would like the law to reflect this reality. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

It turns out that the ERA is not an idea whose time has passed. Only one more state is needed to ratify this amendment. Right now, ratification is on the floor of the state legislature in Florida.

The organization Equal Means Equal is working to support this. If you are in Florida, please read their directives on how you can help make equal rights for all under the law a reality.

If you are in another state, please refer to the Equal Means Equal homepage to see the status of ratification in your own home state.

Let’s work together to make law what is already an obvious reality; that we all have equal personhood.