VIRGINIA HAS RATIFIED THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT. This is basically meaningless, as the time set for ratification expired long ago, as did the dubious Congressional “extensions.” Some are prepared to argue that time limits on ratification are invalid, but there’s no authority for that, and it’s been common practice for decades.

Of course, a genuine, fairly-and-evenly-enforced Equal Rights Amendment would be a disaster for feminists, but they’re expecting to get something like the judicially-rewritten and expanded Title IX. But Keith Whittington is right:

If we think there is a serious need for the ERA and genuine support for it in the contemporary United States, then there is a ready solution—draft a new amendment, push it through Congress, and send it to the states. If we think that the ERA could not currently be adopted and ratified in a reasonable amount of time, then perhaps we should not be eager to say that the ERA is part of the Constitution because exactly three states legislatures have endorsed it since Jimmy Carter was in the White House.

If there’s support now, pass it now. If there isn’t support now it shouldn’t be ratified at all.