Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2.The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

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An early version of the ERA to the U.S. Constitution was first proposed in 1923 by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman of the National Women’s Rights Party. It was never passed by Congress.

In 1972 more than two-thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate voted for the amendment above. Then the ERA went to the 50 state legislatures. Thirty-eight of the states needed to ratify the amendment before it would become law.

By 1982, the deadline Congress imposed for ratification, 35 states ratified the ERA. Supporters of ERA didn’t give up and in 2020 the 38th state ratified the amendment.

Two years later the ERA is still not law because there is political disagreement about whether or not the 1982 deadline should prevent the ERA from being part of the Constitution.

During the pandemic, having friends went through a lot of changes. With the help of technology, we can have both in-person friends and online friends we’ve never met in person. What do you think are the pros and cons of both these kinds of friends?

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