Endorse the Equal Rights Amendment

We the undersigned respectfully ask President Obama to formally endorse the Equal Rights Amendment and make a speech to that effect. If the Equal Rights Amendment were passed, "sex" would be a suspect classification requiring the same high level of "strict scrutiny" and having to meet the same high level of justification – a "necessary" relation to a "compelling" state interest – that the classification of race currently requires. Furthermore, until we put into the Constitution the bedrock principle that equality of rights cannot be denied or abridged on account of sex, the political and judicial victories women have achieved for the past two centuries are vulnerable to erosion or reversal at any time. For all these reasons we need the Equal Rights Amendment.