who served this country well for many, many years. Many people on both sides of this issue have a great deal of confidence in him, including myself. That is why I think it is unfair to say on the one hand, we want a 7-year extension but we are not going to recognize the States who have legitimately said, in their own ways and in their own time, that they are not going to go along with it. That is why this country is great. We can choose to do what we want even if we are wrong, in our individual States. It is a Federal Republic and not a general democracy as some people seem to think. These are issues that are very, very important. All I can say is this. I have respect for the four of you who have testified today. You have expressed your viewpoints. I think you have done so fairly, honestly, and sincerely. Therefore, I respect you. We may disagree, but that is what makes our society a great society. We can have disagreements. Hopefully, we can resolve the conflicts and problems. I can tell you this. If the ERA is ratified and passes, then I will be the first to accept it. If it does not pass, then I will still push as hard as I can for equality of rights for women in all ways to the extent that I can. The fact that we differ philosophically on some of these things is what makes this country great. I appreciate my distinguished chairman. There is no question about it. He is a great U.S. Senator. He has played a great role in the amendment process to the Constitution in this country and he deserves a great deal of credit for that. He has my respect. But we do differ somewhat on these issues. Even here, Senator Bayh has indicated that he wants to know what the authorities say. He wants to look at this from both sides; so do I. I frankly have not made up my mind yet as to whether or not I should vote for an extension, but I can tell you this. One thing I have decided on is that I am not going to vote for an extension without recognition of the States rights to rescind. You might as well know that. [Applause.] Senator SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend the Chair's efforts to keep people on both sides from expressing their views with applause. We want to hear the witnesses. The chairman has made an effort to contain you. I disagree completely with the chairman's point of view on this question. We respect one another's point of view. I would hope that those of you who are in the audience would realize that you are here as citizens. You are entitled to be here. However, we need to be able to deliberate without this expression from time to time. It does disrupt the subcommittee. I join the chairman in asking that you refrain from showing approval or disapproval for the comments of a witness or Senator. Senator BAYH. I think that point is well taken. We appreciate the opinion of all four of you. I think all of this will be helpful. I am not sure that the time that Senator Hatch and I had giving you our opinion will help anybody. We will have a chance to do this on the floor of the Senate. I particularly appreciate the chance to get your thoughts so that they can be made a part of the record. [The prepared statement and additional articles submitted by Father Callahan follow :] PREPARED STATEMENT OF FATHER WILLIAM R. CALLAHAN, S.J., NATIONAL My name is Rev. William Callahan. I am the National Secretary of Priests for Equality, a three-year old organization representing nearly 1,700 Roman Catholic priests. We publicly support equality for women and men in civil society and in the Roman Catholic Church. Our charter explicitly endorses the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We also support an extension of time for discussion of this amendment. I appreciate the invitation to address this subcommittee. I speak today with some diffidence. My Church has been totally controlled and directed by men. Although we have proclaimed our commitment to work for justice and to eliminate discrimination, we have shown more vigor in telling others of their faults than we have in acting justly within the structures of decision-making and ministry inside our own community. Nevertheless I speak today with growing confidence. Part of that confidence comes from the rapid growth of Priests for Equality. Our membership currently extends into 47 states and 20 countries. It represents nearly 4 percent of the active priests in the United States. Yet far more of my hope comes from our Catholic people. Recent surveys show powerful Catholic support for the ERA. The Gallup and CBS-NY Times polls show that almost 60 percent of the Catholic people now support the ERA while less than 25 percent oppose it, a margin of almost 21⁄2 to 1. Our own recent survey of 5,500 church-going Catholics across the country indicates that 68 percent believe the ERA is needed. Since younger Catholics (those under 50 years) affirm the ERA with far greater strength than do older Catholics, it is clear that support for equality under the law is growing steadily within our church. While Catholic opponents of the ERA continue to fight a rearguard, blocking battle, they represent a dying position. Support for equality in law is the emerging consensus of the Catholic community. It is the only position with a future. I intend to sketch briefly some of the Catholic heritage on the issue of equality in order to show the strong need for an extension of the time period for ratification. CATHOLIC HERITAGE ON EQUALITY After an initial movement toward equality for women and men during the time of Jesus and in the early years of the church, women were pushed slowly but surely into a subordinate role. Noble women of the Middle Ages occasionally occupied positions of authority over great abbeys, but this slight tendency toward equality was steadily reduced in succeeding centuries, reflecting the increasing male dominance of western civil society and the steady growth of church control by the clergy. By the beginning of this century sexism had become so much a part of the life of the church that many U.S. Catholic bishops even opposed granting women the right to vote. Cardinal Farley's statement illustrates the "foresight" and "wisdom" of the bishops of his day: "I think it is best for all women to leave to man, politics. . . It is my belief that women will soon tire of the ballot in states in which they have secured it. A fad, I do not believe it will last." (From an interview in Los Angeles.) Cardinal O'Connell of my native Boston described the terrors of the voting booth and its impact upon family life: "*** must the child, returning from school, go to the polls to find his mother?" (N.Y. Globe, June 22, 1911.) But by 1963, times had changed, and the tradition of equality represented by Jesus came alive once again. Pope John XXIII, whose warm human instincts for justice far outreached our community's ability to act, spoke with favor about women's struggle to achieve equality in law and throughout society. In his spirit, the Second Vatican Council which he convoked set forth the official Catholic policy on sexual discrimination. It remains today, the most solemn teaching of our church on this subject: "With respect to the fundamental rights of the person, every type of discrimination *** based on sex * * * is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God's intent." (Church in the Modern World, No. 29–1965.) In 1971, the Roman Synod of Bishops urged our church to move more swiftly to implement an expanded role for women with its very structures. Given our tradition of male dominance, this call to equality and justice for women has not been an easy path for the Catholic community to walk. Many of our Catholic leaders have been less than vigorous in their "affirmative action" programs. But the ground swell of grassroots Catholic opinion is forcing the issue. In 1974, the U.S. Bishops began their great "Call to Action" consultation with U.S. Catholics. Although women's issues were little mentioned in the preparatory documents, in the hearings held across the United States over a period of two years, they emerged as the second most important concern of U.S. Catholics. It was a thrust which could not be denied. When the 1,400-delegate Conference was finally convened in Detroit in the fall of 1976, the delegates-92 percent of whom were bishops or appointed by the bishops-supported equality across-the-board for women and men both in the church and in civil society. Four separate times, by resounding margins, they endorsed ratification of the Equal Rights Amendments. The Call to Action Conference took place at a time when debate on the ERA was becoming increasingly intense in the U.S. generally, and in the Catholic Church, in particular. It continues unabated to this day. As this brief survey indicates, intense debate on the Equal Rights Amendment is a very young issue in the Catholic community. For that reason I wish to urge an extension of the time period for ratification so that further development may take place. WHY AN EXTENSION? With vigorous debate now taking place in the Catholic community and in the U.S. generally, it would be most unfortunate if discussion were cut off by an arbitrary 7-year deadline. The issue has only recently been strongly joined and glimpses of resolution lie ahead. Our Catholic experience after the Second Vatican Council shows the value of sufficient time for discussion where issues of profound growth are at stake. This Council, which closed in 1965, heralded major changes in Catholic policies and directions. Conflict marked the early years after the close of the Council. Some fought to prevent the mandated changes from occurring, while others sought to accelerate the rate of change. In 1972, 7 years after the Council, the struggle was intense and showed strong polarization. Strong voices urged to Pope and Bishops to stop further changes. However, since 1972 enormous growth and resolution have taken place. Although a small Traditionalist Movement attempts to roll back the clock, the vast majority of Catholics have come to believe that the present directions, the directions of Vatican II, are the way of the future. Had we left off debate after 7 years, in 1972, the church would have been left with a festering polarization. I believe that the extension of the ratification period for the ERA will help the U.S. to avoid a similar problem of unresolved conflict and will allow growth and resolution comparable to that which the Catholic community has experienced. An extension will give people of religious faith time to deal with the multiple distortions that opponents have raised by trying to pre-empt religious symbols. Opponents have mounted a campaign which claims that opposition to ERA is somehow pro-God, pro-family and pro-life. These attempts distort both the ERA and religious teaching. The Scriptures, for example, show that man and woman before the fall were equal to one another. When sin entered the world. so did sexism-as part of that sin. To be "pro-God" is to rebuild an equality that overcomes the evil of sexism. Families have their deepest strength in modern society when two people come together to pool their gifts and share life as equals. The ERA will thus strengthen family life, calling forth the talents of each person by removing legal barriers to equality. To be pro-family is to be pro-ERA. It is also becoming clear that the only reverence for life which makes sense in Catholic circles is a reverence that cares for the born as deeply as the unborn, that recognizes both life and equality as integral to the dignity of all of the children of God. Some Catholic opponents of ERA have tried to confuse the ERA with abortion. Others have tried to manipulate Catholic sensitivities on life issues in order to draw Catholics into alliances on a range of conservative issues. But Catholics by and large have not been drawn in. They know that it is impossible for the ERA to give pregnant men an “equal right" to abortion. Our recent survey of 5500 Catholic churchgoers showed that grassroots Catholics make such distinctions sharply. In fact, those who favored the ERA were consistently more reverent for human life on a broad range of social issues than were Catholics who oppose ERA. To be pro-life is to be pro-ERA. Overcoming the distortions will take time, just as it took time to overcome the efforts to discredit the Second Vatican Council. CATHOLIC OPPOSITION Opposition to ERA within Catholic circles, although small and diminishing, tends to come from the more affluent sections of our community-from people whose positions of leadership often produce an impact out of proportion to their numbers. Some opposition comes from the Catholic clergy and from some bishops who see their position in the church eventually threatened if equality for women and men occurs in civil society. For them, resisting the ERA is a way to avoid internal challenges to equality in the church. Some opposition remains in a few former mainline Catholic organizations whose works of charity and philanthropy are impressive, but who have not yet successfully made the transition to the Church's modern thrust toward justice, and hence toward acceptance of equality for women and men in the law. In this they are unlike such organizations as the National Conference of Catholic Charities which has successfully walked this journey, including their endorsement of the ERA. The number of Catholic groups in opposition is declining while those working for the ERA are increasing. I have included a partial list of these groups with my testimony. ERA EXTENSION AND POVERTY One final concern leads me to speak out in favor of ERA extension and ratification: the poverty of women and children in the United States. I deal with this poverty in my own pastoral work and it greatly concerns me. To be born a woman in the U.S. continues to mean denial of jobs, less education, fewer employment skills, responsibility for the children when marriages break up, and a wage scale that pays 57 cents for every dollar earned by men, and lower pay for doing the same work as men. As recent studies show, the wage gap between men and women is increasing, not decreasing. In the Catholic tradition-and in other religious traditions-such economic discrepancies are blatantly unjust. Although the ERA is no panacea for this discrimination, it will guarantee that any laws dealing with employment and wage scales can never again discriminate on the basis of sex. It is my belief that an unwillingness to treat women with equal economic justice underlies much of the opposition to ERA and opposition ot the extension. To turn our backs on the poverty of women is a betrayal of the American dream for their lives. It is for Catholics a betrayal of our commitment to a loving justice. Who will suffer the greater corrosion of spirit-those who suffer poverty and are denied an equal share of the earth's opportunities-those who turn their backs on those less privileged, and in so doing turn their backs on the dreams and principles of their own lives? CONCLUSION In closing, I would like to affirm strongly the extension of the ratification period for the Equal Rights Amendment. The debate on the ERA is young in the Catholic community and in the nation as a whole. The experience of my church suggests that 12-14 years is a perfectly reasonable and needed time period to debate such an issue until a consensus emerges. The signs of this consensus are growing rapidly in the Catholic community and give promise that the issue will be well and equitably resolved. When the ERA is ratified, then our country will have taken a long overdue step to make our dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness a reality for all citizens of the United States, both women and men. Network Quarterly ERA Extension: Time Limit on Human Rights? NETWORK QUARTERLY, VOLUME 6, NUMBER 2, SPRING 1978 Women's struggle for equal rights and equal opportunities is of much longer duration than the current struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). However, the historical significance of the 27th Amendment, ERA, is that it is the US' next logical step in a worldwide effort for human rights. The effort to obtain the right to vote began with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, but the 19th Amendment on Women's Suffrage was not ratified until 1920. The Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1923, but failed 20 times and was finally passed in 1972. The current deadline for ratification is March 1979. As this deadline fast approaches and the possibility of obtaining three more states to reach the requisite 38 for final ratification continues to wane, supporters have given serious attention to extending the time for ERA ratification. NETWORK has supported ERA since 1972 and now supports extension legislation. This article gives the extension resolution's background, the need for extension, reasons for not yet achieving ratification, major objections to extension and strategies to achieve extension. The accompanying charts provide an historical context for ERA, give ERA's present status in both ratified and unratified states, and relates the 27th Amendment to preceding amendments. Representative Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY) introduced a resolution in the current Congress to extend the period for ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment another seven years, until March 22, 1986. The resolution's cosponsors are Congresswomen Jordan, Heckler, Boggs, Burke, Chisholm, Collins, Fenwick, Keyes, Meyner, Mikulski, Oakar, Schroeder, Spellman and Congressmen Wright, Brademas, Foley, Rodino, Edwards (of CA), Conable and McKinney. The resolution, HJ Res. 638, has been referred to the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the House Judiciary Committee. Donald Edwards (D-CA) chairs the subcommittee, and Peter Rodino (D-NJ) chairs the full committee. The first hearings were held in November 1977 and the second in May 1978. When the possibility of extension was first brought to the groups who had traditionally supported ERA, they did not greet it with much enthusiasm. Some of the original objections were that it would slow down activity in the unratified states, that it would be seen as a sign of defeat, that it was unfair, that it was tampering with the Constitution, that it could not win in an election year. The supporters of extension, especially the National Organization of Women (NOW), were able to answer these objections. In a series of briefings and background articles, they convinced over 100 organizations to take positions favoring extension. There is need for extension because there is still a need for ERA, and it does not appear likely that three more states will be able to ratify before the March 1979 deadline. Illinois takes up ERA in May and June, but too few of the other unratified states have legislative sessions early enough in 1979 to take action before the deadline. Sixteen states have passed state equal-rights amendments. Re Carol Coston, OP |