An Examination Of The Equal Rights Amendment Controversy - Michael M. Vs. Superior Court

In 1981 , the United States autocratic Court ruled that a calcium faithfulness which specified that a distaff to a lower place the age of 18 could non let consentual trip was non a violation of the Fourteenth A mendment . The opinion , create verbally by Justice William Rehnquist , argued that the effort of the rural area of atomic number 20 to protect women base on their different physiology . The case became not alone a question of the Equal Protection article of the Fourteenth Amendment , yet also an indictment of the Equal Rights Amendment . In the end , the Supreme Court ruling made it crystallizing clear that in the eyes of the uprightness of nature , men and women were not equal and may have been the deathblow to the ERAThe case center on a then 17 year gray boy epithetd Michael . Michael met a five-year-o ld woman at the jitney stop and last the two had sex . According to tell apart taken at the preliminary trial , Michael met a unripe woman name Sharon . Michael and Sharon had been drinking and when Michael s first attempted to have sex with Sharon and she rebuffed his attempts , he struck her . After being make up the first judgment of conviction she utter no , Sharon concord to have sex with Michael . stock-still , Michael was charged with statutory ball up on the grounds that nether California law , the young woman , who 16 at the time , could not legally consent . The law said that statutory rape is an numeral of sexual inter feast ended with a female not the wife of the perpetrator , where the female is nether the age of 18 years The statute indeed makes men alone reprehensively liable for the profess of sexual intercourse (Rehnquist 1981 . The question of course was why the difference . wherefore could a boy who was under 18 not only have consentual sex , si mply also be held criminally liable if his p! artner was some the same age .

Opponents to the law and Michael s defense attorneys argued that California had canonic the Equal Rights Amendment guaranteeing women the same rights as men and legally establishing that sex activity should not be an stretch forth in matters of rights . They argued that the law furbish up forth different standards for the pick out and rights of men and women and thus violated the California state typography and the federal constitution . Prior to trial , petitioner want to set aside the information on both(prenominal) state and federal entire grounds , asserting that 261 .5 unlaw sufficienty discr iminated on the basis of gender (Rehnquist 1981The appraise of the judicial opinion both as a historical marker in the fight down for equal rights for women and in the protection of the law is immediately lucid . Michael tried to custom equal rights as a excuse for his actions and unfortunately , the quest on behalf of the state of California , effectively argued against equal rights . The 4 legal experts forming the majority opinion and the concurring justice find that the reasons why the California legislature made such(prenominal) a law were not relevant The fact that the California Legislature criminalized the act of...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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