ERA loses in 10th state

this year

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. ( -The state Senate yesterday defeated the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. making Florida the 10th state to reject the proposal this year.

The 21-17 vote against ERA came despite lastminute telephone calls to a number of senators by Betty Ford and Gov. Reubin Askew. It was the third year in a row that the Florida Legislature has killed the proposal.

The end of the roll-call balloting brought opponents in the Senate gallery to their feet in cheers and sent supporters streaming from the chamber in tears.

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"The people have won,' said Sen. Lew Brantley, an ERA critic. "The effect of the ERA on society would be almost like repealing the law of gravity."

Rep. Elaine Gordon, the architect of a 62-58 victory for the ERA in the Florida House two weeks ago, cried openly as she walked from the Senate with a knot of supporters.

"What can I say?" she asked. "It was the deepest disappointment I've ever experienced."

The arguments of opponents centered on the oftstated allegations that the ERA would destroy the family, force women to fight in wars and allow homosexual marriages.

Supporters called unsuccessfully for their colleagues to disregard the scare stories.

The proposal has been ratified by 34 states, including Ohio, but two of them, Nebraska and Tennessee, have voted to rescind that approval. The legality of the actions of those two states has been questioned.

Thirty-eight state legislatures must approve ERA by March. 1979, if it is to become part of the federal constitution.

A string of defeats has left feminists and other supporter of the amendment wondering what went wrong.

Even the ERA's most ardent supporters concede it has no chance of passage this year and many people are doubtful about 1976. Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in March, 1972. It reads: “Equality of rights under the amendment shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.'

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