Women's Rights Advocates Demand U.S. Constitution Guarantee Women's Rights: How about we demand the same "strict scrutiny" for ALL gender based classification and discrimination that we do for race based discrimination?

BolshevikMuppet · 2011-01-09T01:06:31+00:00

We do. The same protections which apply to race apply to the other protected classifications (gender, age, ect.). What you're missing is that "strict scrutiny" is a legal term of art which refers to the way in which a court will analyze a given law which adversely affects a group.

The lowest standard is the rational basis test: the government must prove it has a rational reason for doing what it's doing (it's more complicated, but for simplicity's sake, this is a good overview). The government doesn't have to prove a relationship between the law and a given interest, the Court can make up a legitimate interest served by the law.

Intermediate scrutiny is the second standard. For this, the government must prove that the law or policy being challenged furthers an important government interest in a way that is substantially related to that interest.

Strict scrutiny is the big daddy, and applies when a basic constitutional right is being abrogated, or when a suspect classification is being harmed. So, it applies to free speech limitations, gun rights limitations, and discrimination against gender, age, race, ect. This test is the most rigorous, and requires:

A compelling government interest (usually something very necessary)
The law must be narrowly tailored to serve that interest, so it must address that interest and that interest only.
It must be the least restrictive method of achieving the goal. There must not be another way to achieve the same goal which restricts freedoms or harms a suspect class less.

So, while I'll admit that NOW is being silly, and asking for something which already exists, the right to this kind of review exists for both sides.

2011-01-06T03:45:26+00:00

Probably because NOW is a women's lobbying group that will happily promote openly sexist laws against men.

America has the best politicians money can buy, after all.

kloo2yoo · 2011-01-06T04:33:12+00:00

All there is to do is remind them of the argument Phyllis Schlafly used to defeat it the first time:

It will guarantee equal rights for men too, and women simply don't want that.

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