The Democrat-controlled Minnesota House voted Thursday night to put an Equal Rights Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution on the ballot in 2020, but the Republican-controlled Senate likely won’t allow it. Albert Lea Republican Peggy Bennett warns because equality could not be denied “on account of gender,” transgender males would be allowed to play on women’s sports teams. “We’re opening up right now what I see as the end of girls’ and women’s sports as we know it,” Bennett says. Bill sponsor, New Brighton Democrat Mary Kunesh-Podein responded the proposed amendment is about equal rights for women, “not about who can be on what team and who has to go in one gym and who has to go in another bathroom.”
Maple Lake Republican Marion O’Neill said it breaks her heart to vote “no” for E-R-A, but she won’t let it be used as a tool for abortion. “I have held my own child in my arms as she died, and I will not — I cannot — vote for this bill,” O’Neill said. Democrats respond the proposed constitutional amendment is not about abortion — it’s about equal rights for women. Minneapolis Democrat Diane Loeffler says,
“In our Constitution… we put in fishing in this document. Don’t you think we deserve to have women and their role in our society there?”