Like a hoary specter from the 1970s, the Equal Rights Amendment is back. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., want to ratify it in a new form called the Women’s Equality Amendment, stating 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.”

You might think that the ERA had been buried in the 1970s when it failed to get three-fourths of the states to ratify it. It failed even though Congress questionably extended the ratification period for three years. In fact, five of the states that had previously ratified the amendment rescinded their ratification. But some bad ideas never seem to die. This amendment is unnecessary.

Martha Burk and Eleanor Smeal recently argued in The Washington Post that we need such an amendment now more than ever. They point out that, according to the World Economic Forum, we are 68th in the world for the percentage of women elected to national legislatures. Why an equality amendment would guarantee more women getting elected is unclear.

The WEF also claims that we are 66th in the world in educational attainment for women. But considering that the U. S. Department of Education has reported that women currently earn more bachelor’s and master’s degrees than men and almost as many doctorate degrees, the educational gap, if any, is small. Given that the 14th Amendment already prevents discrimination in admissions, we don’t need a constitutional amendment to narrow a nonexistent gap.

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And then there is the alleged pay gap. Feminists love to trumpet a statistic that women earn 77 percent of what men earn. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., are both sponsoring bills to mandate that men and women get equal pay for jobs that are somehow determined to be equivalent.

The claim that women earn less ignores that women make different choices in employment, often taking time off to have a family and then choosing jobs that offer more flexibility. Clinton and Obama ignore women’s choices and the laws that already mandate equal pay for the same jobs.

Baruch College economist June O’Neill, the former head of the Congressional Budget Office, finds that if you compare women and men who are both unmarried and childless and have similar educations, the pay gap disappears.

Since the 1960s, the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and laws banning discrimination and guaranteeing equal pay for equal work have helped women to narrow and even erase the gaps in education and pay.

Smeal and Burk worry that, although we have many laws that outlaw sex discrimination, legislators might overturn those laws. Yes, democratic government can be messy. But that is the nature of our political system, not a reason to take choices away from elected officials and give them to unelected judges.

Worse than being unnecessary, though, this amendment is a Trojan horse to implement in one fell swoop several policies for which liberals have not yet been able to win popular support.

For example, in states that have similar Equal Rights Amendments in their state constitutions, like New Mexico, courts have ruled that the state must pay for abortions. So this would get around that pesky Hyde Amendment banning such government payments.

Given how our courts have found substance in amendments that the original authors might never have imagined, can anyone doubt that they would do the same for the Women’s Equality Amendment? Judges could rule that the amendment requires same-sex marriage, as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court interpreted a similar amendment in their state constitution.

It would be unconstitutional to keep women out of combat. The new amendment might spell the end of single-sex organizations from fraternities and sororities to the Boys and Girls Scouts.

Martha Burk might finally achieve her goal of requiring the August National golf club to admit women as members. She and Smeal also want to end sex-segregated classes in public schools, regardless of the evidence suggesting they might be beneficial for some students.

When Phyllis Schlafly was campaigning against the ERA in the 1970s, supporters of the amendment accused her of scare tactics for claiming that its passage would lead to both single-sex bathrooms and marriages. Do her claims seem so farfetched today?

And even if the amendment doesn’t get the two-thirds support needed in Congress or three-fourths of the states, it will be a wedge issue for future elections. Picture the scary attack ads now for both sides accusing opponents of wanting to hold women back from full equality and the answering charges that supporters want to end same-sex athletic teams while nationalizing same-sex marriages.

The Democrats in Congress will demand votes on the amendment at a strategic point before the election, and we’ll be plunged once again into debates that we thought we left behind 30 years ago.

Betsy Newmark is a member of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors and blogs at betsyspage.blogspot.com.