What has happened in states with a similar equal rights amendment?
Seventeen states have passed a state equal rights amendment. The language of eleven of those state amendments is substantially different from that of the proposed federal ERA, containing the more flexible “equal protection of the law” concept of the Fourteenth Amendment. Those eleven state amendments thus allow the courts to make “reasonable exceptions” and differentiation between the sexes when interpreting the law. But the remaining six state amendments have the same or nearly the same “no exceptions allowed” language as the federal ERA. Experience in these states thus gives reason for concern regarding the proposed federal amendment. In judicial interpretations of some of these state equal rights amendments, an absolutist, inflexible approach appears to be evolving. Here are examples of rulings made under those state amendments with language similar to the ERA: Maryland Coleman v. Maryland, 37 Md. App. 322, 377 A.2d (1977): The court in this case held that a husband could no longer
