It is time to abolish the myth of ‘differently equal’ once and for all.

(RNS) — “As pernicious as the racial doctrine of ‘separate but equal.’”

That’s how the Rev. Pauli Murray, the civil rights and women’s rights trailblazer, described a legal system that discriminates based on sex. Murray dedicated herself to an extraordinary life of challenging the twin evils of racial and gender discrimination.

On Thursday (April 27), Murray’s hopes for human rights inch closer to victory, as a reform she championed comes before the U.S. Senate for a historic vote. If the Senate passes the bipartisan Senate Joint Resolution 4, the Equal Rights Amendment, originally approved by a supermajority of Congress in 1972 and approved by three-fourths of the states, will become “valid to all intents and purposes as part of the U.S. Constitution.”

This vote is about the bedrock principle of equality under the law for all citizens, regardless of sex. Affirming the ERA should be a no-brainer in a modern democracy like the United States that claims to uphold human rights.

As faith leaders concerned about the harms of gender-based violence, pregnancy discrimination, maternal mortality and other injustices, we believe full equality is an urgent moral imperative. Every one of these harms has an outsized impact on women of color and their families.

The ERA remains deeply contested, however — not based on minutiae of constitutional procedure, as some opponents claim, but on the age-old struggle for women to be respected as fully human, entitled to the same rights as men.

A vast majority of Americans support the ERA, including faith leaders from a diversity of religions. They agree that all people should be safeguarded against the indignities of sexism and the harms of gender-based violence. As nearly 600 faith leaders affirm in an interfaith petition in support of the ERA, “All people are equally valuable in the sight of their Creator, and thus deserve equal regard in human laws and legal systems.”

It is truly this simple, and this revolutionary.

In his 2011 book “The Idea of Justice,” philosopher Amartya Sen explains how the principle of equality, which animated demands of the American Revolution, remains central to “every normative theory of social justice” well-accepted in today’s world. Equality is an essential element of fairness and impartiality; it prevents a system from being arbitrary or biased against some in favor of others.

Demonstrators, part of a crowd of 25,000, march along Chicago’s lakefront on May 10, 1980, in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Many churches and religious organizations participated in the event. RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.

At a Senate committee hearing on the ERA in late February, opponents veered as far as possible from the heart of the matter and doggedly tried to frame the debate around procedure — because the anti-egalitarian sentiment underpinning their opposition is anathema to 21st-century America.

Opponents insist it is too late to finalize this amendment, or that certain states revoked their decisions to ratify the ERA. But renowned constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe and others have thoroughly debunked these notions — and they were never the real issue to begin with.

As Lindsey Graham made clear at the hearing, he is intent on killing the ERA regardless of what process it undergoes.

The ERA’s Senate opponents (all Republicans) claim that U.S. women have already achieved gender parity but that somehow legal equality would be dangerous to women’s interests. In other words, they think women need “special protections” under the law rather than equal rights. Think of this as “differently equal” — as the Supreme Court does.

Currently, the court applies a unique standard to sex discrimination cases under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Sex-based distinctions in government laws, policies and practices are in essence more readily tolerated than racial or religious distinctions. This uneven standard of equal protection reflects an uneven history: The doctrine did not apply to women at all before the early 1970s.

The notion that this middling brand of “equality” benefits women is untrue. It has not come close to eradicating the widespread injustice many suffer today, such as life-altering pay discrimination, runaway maternal mortality, epidemic domestic violence and ominous medical risks faced by pregnant people since the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision last June.

At the February hearing, Republican opponents conceded that the 14th Amendment does not provide a legitimate guarantee of full equality — and they do not actually want one.

Granted, some women’s biological capacity for childbearing gives rise to particular needs — for prenatal health care and consideration during pregnancy, for instance. But the murky intermediate scrutiny of “differently equal” is failing to meet these needs.

This is precisely why the ERA’s more robust standard of sex equality is necessary.

Today, women live under a Supreme Court precedent that pregnancy discrimination is not “sex discrimination.” The newly adopted Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which goes into effect this summer, represents the latest effort to secure basic accommodations for pregnant workers. But it does not cover all employers, and experience shows that its helpfulness will turn on judicial interpretation.

A constitutional principle of full equality should inform how this law is applied.

The ERA will also undergird much-needed legislation, such as the proposed Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act. The ERA will empower Congress to enforce equality with relevant laws like these, which makes them more secure against court challenges. In recent years, laws prohibiting female circumcision and violence against women have been struck down for want of a constitutional foundation.

As former Stanford Law School dean Kathleen Sullivan testified in February, the “majestic” guarantee of equality under the law allows space for equity, too. It need not amount to banning public officials from considering gender altogether — but it will require gender distinctions in the law to be exceedingly well justified, not mere concessions to sex stereotypes or traditional roles.

Our ethnic, cultural and religious differences are meaningful, and our diversity as a nation is worth celebrating. Each human being is a singular creation, never to be replicated. God broke the mold after making each of us.

But our uniqueness as individuals and communities must not be used to elevate some over others or reinforce painful and oppressive hierarchies — such as white or male or Christian supremacy.

Since our nation’s founding, gender differences have been used to relegate women to second-class status, ignore their needs, impose double standards and tolerate the cruelest forms of violence.

It is time to abolish the myth of “differently equal” once and for all — and relegate it to the dustbin of history, alongside “separate but equal,” where it belongs.

Allyson McKinney Timm is founder and executive director of Justice Revival and convener of the #Faith4ERA interfaith campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment. Tarunjit Singh Butalia is a board member of Faith in Public Life and executive director of Religions for Peace USA. Lisa Sharon Harper is founder and president of Freedom Road and author of “Fortune” and “The Very Good Gospel.” 

(RNS) — Recent Supreme Court opinions dangerously undermine women’s equal protection under the law. As women of faith, we are alarmed and active. Each of us has struggled against patriarchal interpretations of texts and teachings that undermine women’s autonomy and rights. We reject the mainstreaming of repressive religious interpretations in shared public spaces that derail our quest for equal justice.

On Women’s Equality Day, we affirm the Equal Rights Amendment as an essential next step to protect women’s rights and dignity.

Justice and equality are at the heart of the human project. American history is replete with diverse, multifaith coalitions that advance cultural shifts toward inclusivity. It is appalling that the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson overturned abortion rights based on the literal text of a centuries-old document that excluded women from its inception. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected …,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito.

We recognize this brand of originalism from religion. Opposing justice because a text does not mention a word or emerged from a patriarchal context is a familiar argument made to preserve hierarchical power. It has long been common conservative practice to declare that the sexist historical context in which a document was penned should remain the norm today — just as the court did.

Many of our religious texts make no explicit mention of the terms “abortion,” “homosexuality,” “same-sex marriage” or “the declaration of human rights,” but all emphatically insist on justice.

In Islam, the word “abortion” does not exist; the supreme right and well-being of the mother do. For centuries, a Muslim woman has had the right to end her pregnancy whether for the mother’s health or for economic reasons. A fetus’s personhood is only recognized with the baby’s first gasp of air.

Judaism has a similar belief rooted in Exodus. The Jewish tradition has such reverence for human life that the pregnant person is held in high regard. Abortion is not only mandated to save the mother’s life but is permitted to save her from great distress, physical or emotional. The ancient rabbis described a fetus as part of the mother’s body, which does not take on personhood until the majority of the head emerges from the womb.

Protestant and Catholic Christians hold diverse views of abortion and women’s equality. A thread of misogyny runs through traditional orthodoxy; control of women remains a consistent theme in many theologies. Yet, Christian sacred texts highlight the dignity and empowerment of women in accord with Jesus’ teaching that all are equal.

Christian Scriptures are silent on abortion. There is no Christian consensus on when fetal life begins. Many feel compelled by their faith to respect women’s moral agency to make prayerful choices about childbearing and family life. Opposition to responsible reproduction is a minority view among U.S. Christians. It should not be accorded broad legal authority in a pluralistic society.

The Sikh tradition proclaims the equality and dignity of women. Sikh sacred texts present a vision of a world where people of all castes, creeds and genders are sovereign in their bodies. Any ban on abortion is a violation of this core belief. To strip away a woman’s freedom to care for her body — to decide when, whether and how to bring children into the world — is to deny her intelligence and humanity.

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson stated that “a wall of separation between Church and State” was a foundational element of American democracy. Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly cited Jefferson’s words as justification for the priority of secular law over the teachings of any individual faith. We live in a democratic society where rule of law, not fiat, should control.

The Equal Rights Amendment will play an important role in ensuring such a democracy. By inserting these words in the Constitution: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged … on the basis of sex,” we can correct the intentional exclusion of women. For the first time in U.S. history, people of all genders will be citizens of equal stature.

This nation is a hair’s breadth away from finalizing the ERA. It has been duly ratified by 38 states and needs only to be published by the U.S. archivist. We call on President Biden to ensure that this happens swiftly. We call on the U.S. Senate to affirm that there is no arbitrary deadline on the ERA’s adoption.

Recent Supreme Court decisions, with repercussions in the states, have shown us how urgent this reform is. As women of faith, we are committed to the common task of making the ERA the law of the land. We invite all people of goodwill to join us as we get it done.

(Ani Zonneveld is the founder and president of Muslims for Progressive Values. Lisa Sharon Harper is the president and founder of Freedom Road. Mary E. Hunt, Ph.D., is cofounder and codirector of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER). Valarie Kaur leads the Revolutionary Love Project. Rabbi Sharon Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR and a leading voice in reanimating religious life in America. Allyson McKinney Timm is a human rights lawyer and the founder of Justice Revival. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

This article was originally published by Religion News Service.

The intensity of Lucio’s brush with death in the face of breathtaking evidence of her innocence is startling. Experts like Professor Sandra Babcock and The Innocence Project insist Lucio was convicted for a crime that never occurred, pressured into a false confession and scapegoated by a corrupt prosecutor. Yet despite the flimsy case against her, it took a documentary film seen by millions, a massive local public education effort featuring Lucio’s family, tens of thousands of signatures, half the legislators in Texas, and celebrities like Kim Kardashian to stop this execution. Stays like this one are not the norm in Texas, which leads the nation in executions, and rarely lead to a reduced sentence.

Moreover, near misses like Lucio’s are an ominous recurrence in a nation where the federal government, military tribunals, and 27 states still use capital punishment, against the admonition of global human rights authorities and in contrast with nearly all liberal democratic societies. Ranking in the ignoble Who’s Who of nations that most frequently put their citizens to death, the U.S. stands in the bad company of authoritarian and pariah states like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea—a fellow outlier on a core human rights issue that’s drawn burgeoning consensus over the last seven decades.

U.S. insistence on modern day death chambers poses a host of moral problems beyond the risk of a flawed human system catching innocents like Melissa Lucio in its fatal grip. In addition to condemning 187 defendants who were later fully exonerated, our state and federal governments have executed at least 42 intellectually disabled and 22 who committed their crimes as minors—killings our Supreme Court has since summoned the scruples to deem unconstitutional.

The Court has not, however, seen its way clear to safeguard against the indisputable racial disparities in capital punishment, by which Black defendants are far more likely to be executed, especially when Whites are the ones victimized. Poverty is a risk factor, too, and idiosyncrasies of state and local politics and officials’ views play an alarming role in meting out the ultimate, irreversible form of retribution.

The U.S. has refused to respect global human rights norms that limit capital punishment to the most extreme cases. Texas proceeded with executing Carl Buntion last month at the age of 78, despite his physical infirmities and evidence that people his age are rarely violent. One treaty repudiates the death penalty for those aged 70 or older, but that was no matter.

It’s not only the execution of innocents that should haunt us. It’s the specter of Richard Moore choosing a firing squad over electrocution, and the excruciating lethal injection of prisoners caught between a drug industry that objects to its medicines being used to lethal ends and officials fixed on finding a path to execution, even through shadowy or unregulated means. Oklahoma injected one poor soul with a chemical used to de-ice airplanes. His last words were, “It feels like my body is on fire.”

We need a broader moral reckoning on capital punishment—in the Bible belt, in particular. In a recent forum, we zeroed in on the challenge of problematic theology, which in Shane’s words has turned the Bible Belt into a “Death Belt,” giving moral cover to a lethal human rights violation. Southern states where Christianity predominates are the ones holding fast to the death penalty and using it most often. Last month four executions were scheduled—two in Texas and one each in Tennessee in South Carolina—during a season where Christians everywhere celebrated resurrection.

A 2021 Pew Research study found that White Protestants are the most ardent supporters of capital punishment (nearly three quarters approve), and that Atheists and Agnostics are the only groups to disfavor it. Catholic support at 58% is nearly on par with the national average—despite Pope Francis renouncing capital punishment altogether, thanks to the tireless advocacy of Sister Helen Prejean and her fellow advocates.

As lifelong Christians who hail from the Deep South, we know how values of personal responsibility plus law and order can be warped into religious fervor for lethal retribution. Yet even the most rigid interpretations of a Christian message are impossible to square with the death penalty. Though not all Jesus followers embrace penal substitutionary atonement (the belief that Jesus’ death was necessary to save humanity from sin), a great many do. The good news is that, taken seriously, it could be the undoing of American bloodlust.

If the primary significance of the crucifixion is redemption from our sinful human nature and an invitation to reconciliation with a loving God, we mock the Author of this plan by declaring that Carl Buntion was no longer worth Christ’s effort. If we dismiss a fellow human being as beyond redemption, we may as well look Jesus in the eye and tell him, “Sorry, your tortuous sacrifice is not good enough for my taste.” To insist on death as retribution is to reject the Christian Gospel of salvation.

And ultimately, that’s the problem, isn’t it? We try to reject it, time and again. The deep difficulty many Christians have with the Gospel is not believing it but truly “accepting that we are accepted,” to paraphrase Fr. Richard Rohr, through no merit of our own. Such grace, he explains, is the death knell of our striving egos, the ultimate expurgation of our false, temporal selves. If our eternal, spiritual side could receive the hope of salvation, enjoy its truth in our innermost being, we would shudder at the thought of putting a fellow sojourner to death.

If we believed Jesus’ words, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,” we would cherish the lives of those whose past misdeeds lay bare the universal need for saving grace. The New Testament gives us a parent rejoicing over the return of a wayward child with a relish that leaves others in disbelief. Divine hope in the redemption of the most culpable criminal—or of you and of me—never gives out.

If we were to look carefully at scriptures invoked to justify lethal retributive punishment, as scholar David Gushee has, we would learn that early communities of interpretation came to understand them as “putting a sacred protective boundary around the life of the human being,” rather than demanding further violence.

What’s more, the sum of the biblical narrative bespeaks a value and worth to each and every human life, in God’s eyes, which has influenced the course of history. It has helped to birth the revolutionary conviction that certain principles for how we treat one another are sacrosanct. For the human right to life to mean anything, it must mean the powerful hand of the state is restrained from striking down one of its own—an image bearer of a merciful God—in the name of justice.