Women's rights groups advocate an international convention that would achieve the goals of the failed Equal Rights Amendment.

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The defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment meant that all progress in creating an environment that supports working women stopped.

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Discrimination based on sex was also specifically outlawed, years before the rest of the country failed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

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In the 1970s, the Democratic and Republican parties supported a wide array of women's rights policies, including an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, publicly funded child care and equal pay for women.

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And in the 1970s and 1980s, conservative women invoked patriotic motherhood to argue against the equal rights amendment, saying it would unhinge the structure of the family and a woman's privileged place (their argument) in American society.

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Her appointment was very much a reflection of the times, in that her tenure predated the emergence of the Christian right and the conservative turn in the Republican Party, making it possible for a woman who supported abortion rights and the Equal Rights Amendment to serve in the party leadership role.

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The Liberty Counsel said it planned to argue in its lawsuit that the measure infringes on the First Amendment and equal protection rights.

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Many Senators, though inclined to vote for it rather than step into a conservative trap, also support an amendment offered by Senator Edward Kennedy that would guarantee gays equal rights on the job.

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