Forty-Five Years Ago This Week: “Women must demand — now and if necessary at the peril of our lives — that we be granted civil rights in the same way rich white men in this country were granted them: constitutional decree,” said Sonia Johnson, co-founder of Mormons for the Equal Rights Amendment. 

Johnson spoke in Alamosa, Denver and Boulder at events sponsored by the Colorado National Organization for Women, Denver Women’s Political Caucus and the Colorado League of Women Voters. 

Her outspoken support for women’s rights was in direct conflict with the official Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ stance on the ERA. This had led to her excommunication by the LDS Church in December 1979.

“Mormons for ERA is a growing network of Mormon men and women who support equal protection for women under the Constitution,” Johnson said.

She went on to share an anonymous letter from a Mormon woman who wrote, “The church is gearing up for a holy war against the Equal Rights Amendment to defend their endangered large families and macho-marriage lifestyles. The Mormon church has power, bodies and money to attain theocracy as their goal, and what’s more — they have the minds of their women.”

In other news, in a guest column published in The Colorado Statesman, Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-CD1, compared what her caucus had achieved since 1977, “combatting domestic violence, eliminating the marriage tax, defending child nutrition programs, providing pension benefits for the former spouses of government and military personnel,” to the accomplishments of the Reagan administration.

Schroeder said the cry from the Reagan administration was, “Women and children first,” but wrote, “they will slash child nutrition, but leave tobacco subsidies as sacred as ever.”

Women earned 59% of what men earned and unemployment rates were higher for women and highest of all for minority women, Schroeder wrote. And the fastest growing poverty group in the United States was older women, she added.

“The ERA is an economic issue,” Schroeder argued. “What the ERA all comes down to is that there is nothing quite so liberating as a paycheck or a pension. The ERA should be passed because it is good economics for women and good economics for America. It is a true family issue. We need to mobilize more women than have ever been mobilized before. We need to roll up our socks and get on with it.”

Twenty-Five Years Ago: “This is a question of fairness,” said Rep. Mark Larson, R-Cortez. “I’ve have constituents say that they have oil rigs set up in their back yards and they did not feel they had adequate protections in the negotiating process.”

It was for this reason, Larson said, that he had introduced House Bill 01-1062, which would require oil and gas operators to pay landowners for damages caused to their property by drilling. In Colorado, the owner of a property might not be the owner of the mineral rights under the land and this had led to conflicts between surface owners and oil and gas operators. 

Under the language in the bill, mineral owners would be required to notify landowners of any pending operations and any disagreements not solved through negotiations could be referred to the courts. Mineral owners would be required to negotiate in good faith and all disputes would have to be settled before drilling or mining began.

“This bill doesn’t take away the rights of mineral owners, but it does recognize that there is indeed surface damage from oil and gas development,” Larson said. 

Rep. Gregg Rippy, R-Glenwood Springs, sponsored his own House Bill 01-1088, which would require that land buyers be notified before purchase if the mineral rights under the land had been “severed” and sold to another party. 

“This bill encourages communication both ways,” Rippy said. “Conflicts between surface and mineral owners can delay action on drilling which worsens the energy crisis…. It’s going to require a fundamental shift in public policy, so we can move forward on this issue.”

Rachael Wright is the author of several novels, including The Twins of Strathnaver, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing columnist to Colorado Politics, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Denver Gazette.