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Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

LUX: Focus Efforts to Fight for Women

LUX: Focus Efforts to Fight for Women

Conservative Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker wrote this weekend that “to review the left’s reaction to Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is to infer he’s the spawn of Dracula — a cruel and bloodless beast who shrinks from the light and plays havoc with history.”

Though Parker is dismissive of the negative feedback toward Gorsuch’s nomination, Democrats do have a right to be frustrated. Had it not been for Republican antics during the Obama administration — namely, refusing to hold a hearing for Obama’s Supreme Court nominee for a record-breaking 293 days — there would not even be a seat for Gorsuch to fill. But let us bracket that for a moment.

Parker attempts to dismiss liberal objections against Gorsuch as “a distortion.” But liberals are not distorting the facts; they are simply reading his work. Gorsuch has written that he is opposed to assisted suicide for the terminally ill, and he argued in the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. case that corporations could deny contraception coverage to employees based on religious objections.
It is true that Gorsuch has never explicitly ruled on abortion, but it does not require mental gymnastics to say that if Gorsuch does not believe in a right to die, he probably does not believe in a woman’s right to choose an abortion. To be fair, that is speculation, but it is still not “distortion.”

Republicans can say that Gorsuch is qualified for the seat. Parker is unfounded in her dismissal of their disappointment.
However, while Democrats have every right to be upset, there is essentially nothing they can do to stop Gorsuch from being confirmed.
While they could filibuster, that would likely cause Republicans in Congress to “invoke the nuclear option,” which, in Capitol Hill parlance, means voting to permanently change the Supreme Court confirmation threshold from 60 votes to a 51-Senator simple majority vote to confirm the nominee. With 52 members, Republicans could easily vote in Gorsuch.

So what should Democrats do?

Democrats can bring back the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment.

An Equal Rights Amendment has been introduced every session since 1982, but, with the exception of one near-passage in the 1980s, Congress has infuriatingly left the ERA to die in committee year after year.

Though the language of the Equal Rights Amendment has changed slightly over time, it basically states that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

According to a recent ERA coalition poll, 94 percent of Americans would support an amendment that declares equal rights for men and women. While women have gained certain rights over the years, no constitutional guarantee of equality leaves women vulnerable to changes in the law, and, as is the case today, changes in the composition of the Supreme Court.

So, Democratic members of Congress should stop complaining about Gorsuch’s nomination, which is beyond their control, and act to make meaningful change for women, channeling all the rage for Gorsuch’s stolen seat into fighting to add an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In a 2016 speech honoring Justice Scalia, Gorsuch stated that he believes that “judges should strive — if humanly and so imperfectly — to apply to law as it is … looking to text, structure, and history.” If Gorsuch wants to spend the next 40 years looking specifically to the text of the Constitution, Democrats in Congress should fight to add some words that force him to consider women, too.

Emma Lux is a junior in the Colllege. STILL HERE appears every other Tuesday.

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  • S

    sandy oestreichFeb 22, 2017 at 7:51 pm

    I spent half an hour creating a Comment here, just to recognize a fraction of a second too late that apparently I HAD TO CHECK OFF THE BOX B E F O R E I clicked Submit.

    I will say much more briefly that that Holy Rollers went out with the medievalists before our Constitution. So, Sherm, who lectured us on and on is outdated. It IS the 21st Century. As much as that frightens Some, I look forward to it and hope that others can entertain some new thoughts sooner rather than later. At least, that they stop trying to control all of us with new and brighter ideas. Please.

    I am 82.

    Reply
    • S

      Sherman RobertsFeb 23, 2017 at 5:26 pm

      I would have found your half hour of comments interesting.

      Regardless of what century we live in, absolute or divinely revealed truth does not change with the times. It is not old-fashioned (or outdated) because it is eternal and unchanging. Absolute truth is not concerned with the signs of the times, or how many it persuades; it is what it is.

      Without exception, we fallen and sinful human beings live with constant spiritual warfare waging between supernatural good and evil, Christ and Antichrist, powers from Heaven and Hell. This spiritual war becomes physical when Christians are persecuted (today they are ostracized socially, and censored in the media as bigoted, rigid, harsh, intolerant, narrow-minded, outdated, and stupid).

      Almost no one hates or persecutes you if you preach those parts of the Gospel that are popular today, such as peace, justice, compassion, and social action. But you are often hated and rejected today if you dare to say such unpopular things such as these:

      * that Jesus is not just one among many equal religious figures, but the only true God;
      * that sin, judgement, and Hell are real;
      * that sexual sins, like other sins, are really sins and need to be repented of and turned away from;
      * that Christianity is not a moral fable but a supernatural, miraculous fact; or
      * that there is objective, absolute truth and objective, absolute values, that people can be wrong, that “truth for me” (relativism) isn’t enough.

      The real truth does not control anyone, but rather frees everyone who embraces and lives by it, as Jesus Christ said (Jn 8:32; 14:6).

      “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” St. Thomas Aquinas

      For anyone who 1) is concerned about their eternal salvation, and 2) wishes to understand more about what real truth is, here are some well written articles:

      https://blog.adw.org/2017/02/sometimes-necessary-risk-giving-offense/

      https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/judge-not-doesnt-mean-ignore-evil

      https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/no-contradictions-in-truth

      https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/freedom-in-truth

      https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-it-true-that-there-is-no-truth

      https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/lost-in-space

      https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/eternal-gamble

      Reply
  • S

    Sherman RobertsFeb 7, 2017 at 9:02 pm

    Lux: Focus Efforts to Fight for Women, should read: Focus Efforts to Fight for God-given Human Rights for Everyone!

    The U.S. Supreme Court is made up of FALLIBLE (aka sinful) women and men who don’t always get it right no matter their IQ, experience, and political persuasion; in truth, the court has been just too political for many decades, with its propensity to legislate at times, instead of judicate.

    Objective common sense needs to prevail, and the U.S. constitution must be interpreted based on the founders’ original purpose and intent. To treat it as a “living document” invites the falsehoods of all forms of relativism, i.e., mental deviations from reality, which have morally corrupted the last few generations of our society.

    From the beginning, Western Civilization was built on the reality that we are all made in the image and likeness of God, Who is Truth, and truth is the mind’s conformity with reality. We derive our human dignity from our Creator, who wants us to know, love, and serve Him (as relationship, not gender) in this life, so that we may be happy with Him in the next. That is the real purpose of the Catholic University!

    Gorsuch is a morally good and highly competent judge who follows the natural moral law, as well as the Law of God. No person has the right to play god by terminating human life (from conception to natural death). Euthanasia and abortion kill human life, and abortion HARMS WOMEN. Roe v. Wade never should have happened, like the Dred Scott Decision of 1857 (which severely undermined the platform of the newly created Republican Party) never should have happened. Sound familiar today?

    We need a clear thinking and morally upright judge like Gorsuch to get our Supreme Court back on the right track.

    Attached is an excellent article, “Courting Disaster”, which gives an overview of nine disastrous Supreme Court decisions that frame how our culture has declined over the last seventy years. We must reverse course or perish, eventually!

    https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/courting-disaster

    Sherman Roberts, College, c’65

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    Bradley WilliamsFeb 7, 2017 at 2:06 pm

    Amending Colorado’s Prop 106 is sorely needed (and OR,WA,CA). The initiative was bought for $8,000,000 of deception. Even as they proclaimed that the poison must be self administered they did not provide for an ordinary witness. The difference is that without a witness it allows forced euthanasia but with a witness they would up hold individual choice.

    Amendments would include requiring a witness to the self administration, restore the illegality of falsifying the death certificate require the posting of the poison applied in the medical record for the sake of good stewardship for future studies, register organ/tissue trafficking, reveal commissions and memorials paid to the corporate facilitators and keep all records for transparent public safety policy.
    Bradley Williams
    President
    MTaas

    Reply