Rights and wrongs

All things being equal, the Equal Rights Amendment, passed by Congress back in 1972 and sent to the states for ratification, ought to become part of the Constitution. In America, “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

All things aren’t equal. By the time Virginia said yes to the ERA last month, making it in theory the clinching 38th state to do so, a 1979 deadline Congress had set (later extended to 1982) had passed. Just as consequentially, five states that originally ratified had yanked their approvals.

Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill retroactively removing the earlier deadline, as though that takes care of that. Even if the Senate gets on board, even if the courts concur with the revisionism, the pesky problem of the states that did U-turns remains.

So says the nation’s preeminent authority on the Constitution and the rights of women, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“I would like to see a new beginning, I’d like it to start over,” she told those gathered at an event commemorating the centennial of the 19th Amendment’s ratification. “There’s too much controversy about latecomers, Virginia long after the deadline passed.

“Plus, a number of states have withdrawn their ratification. So if you count a latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard states that said ‘we’ve changed our minds’?”

You can’t. Do it right or don’t do it at all.