Sorry sport fans this is not baseball talk.

It’s Equal Rights for All.

Gender equality has been misleading in America since before we were officially a sovereign nation. It seems the first written and published mistake was made when our forefathers only mentioned “men” in the Declaration of Independence.

2nd paragraph.

10th word.

“..We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..”

The Declaration of Independence
Declared on July 2nd
Drafted by many
Penned by Thomas Jefferson
Signed August 2nd
The year 1776

Now, I do understand you guys had a lot going on at that time. Thanks for getting this whole freedom thing started fella’s. That being said, the idea of gender equality should be an easy enough fix. We can just substitute “people” for “men”.

Editing The Constitution

Or amend if you will

My entire life I have read our founding documents non literally in a literal world. I honestly thought the pronoun misuse of men on our founding documents could be reasonably understood to include all living human beings.

Not just men

Since it obviously should and I dear hope our Founding Fathers meant to.

But now as an adult, and having gone through some of my own issues with language in contracts and other binding documents, I do understand the importance of precise language.

I’m not sure you can actually change The Declaration of Independence. But, that isn’t what gives us rights/laws to live by anyway. That’s another document entirely: The Constitution. Now, i’m referring to the U.S. Constitution not to be confused with individual state Constitutions.

In case you missed the title image. Thirteen states do not guarantee equal rights based on gender. Crazy, sad, but very true. Not to mention the Country. That’s how these documents work. So to guarantee Equal Rights for all or add ERA ‘ : > \ ~

As a husband and father of two young woman I’d like to officially state for public record that I stand on the shoulders of Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul, Susan Catania, any and all Suffragettes, along with all the other voices over my almost 40 years on this planet to amend The Constitution to include gender equality. Yeah, it needs to be a national law. Not just because it has 3/4 (38 states ratified it) if Arizona, Florida, Virginia or any of the other of those yellow states approve it. Yellow is the color on title image that identifies the 13 hold out states not a slur.

Here is what they have been trying to get passed since 1923

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on the account of sex.

Alice Paul circa 1923
Updated in 1943 to better reflect language of the 15th and 19th amendments

I know it’s crazy but this simple 24 word phrase is not in The U.S. Constitution.

It has nothing to do with abortion, who you love, or what you identify as your gender. It simply says all people are equal.

We hold these truths to be self evident that all people are created equal.

What Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and others should have written in 1776

See that would work and is a great start. It simply gives all American Citizens equal rights. Yes, it does matter. Or, you could replace the word men with humans or citizens but I think people has a more open ring to it.

Too much for you? Call it an addendum. Do you need even more compromise? How about an asterisk?

For me, and a growing number or people in this country, this probably doesn’t include everything that it needs. That is a topic for another day.

But we allow things like this to happen.

The questions I’ll leave you are:

Why is this taking so long?

How is this still an issue on a national, state, and local levels?

Are there still people like Phylis Schlafly out there? I try not to peddle hate and fear but it’s our history and the history of the struggle for equal rights.

If you want look her up go ahead. If not, just know that she must be scared, didn’t understand what she was saying, or was just genuinely a despicable person. But, in my eyes anyone who would be against equality for all is pretty reprehensible.

Will this fix all of the social issues we face today, no.

But it’s at least a step in the right direction to a more inclusive society. A society I want my daughters to live in, and hopefully this sole act can begin this country to begin trending in the right direction as we continue to evolve as a society.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Ken

add era**