Ask Beaufort County delegation to ratify the ERA in SC legislature | Letters
The Equal Rights Amendment – why not South Carolina?
The 24-word Amendment simply states: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged in the United States or any state on account of sex.” The word “women” is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. Ratification of the ERA would guarantee an inalienable right, equality for women and men.
The ERA was passed unanimously by both the House and Senate and signed by President Richard Nixon in 1972. Currently, one more state is needed to ratify. Although Virginia may reach that historic milestone in the next 30 days, why shouldn’t South Carolina be the 39th or 40th state and send a message to the residents of this state and this nation that South Carolina champions women’s equality?
South Carolina’s 2020 legislative session began Jan. 14. There are joint ERA resolutions in both the House and the Senate, each with bipartisan support. Ratification of the ERA is not complicated.
It ensures equality under the laws of this country regardless of gender. The economic, educational and legal benefits for our state are numerous.
Contact your representative and senator. Ask them to vote YES to ratify the ERA in South Carolina. As a local representative reminded me, “We run for office every two years and need to hear from our constituents.”
This is a nonpartisan, human rights issue. Let’s not make it about anything else.
Barbara Phillips Hammes
Hilton Head Island
Next extinction: Humankind
Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid caused the last mass extinction event on the earth. Mankind arose from the ashes, as the evolution of mammalian life filled the niche left by the demise of dinosaurs.
As self-awareness and consciousness transformed humanity, man created God to explain the “why” of it all, and in the fullness of time learned to weaponize their deities. Notions of “God’s will,” “infallibility,” “God is on our side,” and other self-serving sentiments emerged to quash dissent.
In the book of Genesis, mankind “green-lighted” humanity’s justification for environmental and ecological destruction:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
And humanity took that advice to the bank. Since 1970, it is estimated that one-third of all avians have died, there are major die-offs of insects, and the oceans are rapidly acidifying. Fisheries are being depleted, groundwater is being contaminated from mining and injection of chemical slurry from fracking, as well as the shedding of microplastic particles now ubiquitous in the environment.
It’s as if the “Christians in name only” running our country are trying to hasten their “Apocalypse.” I posit here that man is the next major extinction event.
Hal Cherry
Hilton Head Island
Police are to ‘serve and protect’
Knowing the Bluffton police are “on duty,” why do I now feel less safe driving through their town?
“Power over”? The rush? I doubt the driving force is a true sense of “serve and protect.”
Cowboys need control and oversight.
Tom Downs
Beaufort
How to submit a letter
Send letters to the editor by email to letters@islandpacket.com or letters@beaufortgazette.com.
Or you may submit a letter online.
Letters to the editor must be 250 words or fewer and include your first and last names, street address and daytime telephone number so we can verify the letter before publication.
You are limited to one letter per 30 days.
Letters may be edited for length, style, grammar, taste and libel. All letters submitted become the property of The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 8:46 AM.