"Support the ERA" by Tiffanie L. Gray

"ERA, Equal Rights for Animals", scream picketing conservationists and Audabon members. The lead Rabble Rouser was a thin, pale-haired individual with an extraordinary nose. He gave one the feeling that you were listening to a Greyhound, dog, not bus. (Busses had been abolished by ecologists, along with cars, trains, planes and motorcycles some ten years ago.

"Give animals the vote! Parrots are people too! Horses are human. Why deprive whales?" were some of the neatly painted slogans that adorned the picketer's signs. Various animals were running loose among the crowds, some wore signs as well. The picketers had to step carefully to avoid stepping on mice and guinea pigs with "ERA" painted on their backs.

Why the people were picketing is easily surmised. Throughout the decades women had got the vote, minorities - equal rights, women - equal rights, minorities- more equal rights, women had become slaves, minorities had become slaves. Now having got everyone to this equal state it was time to do the same for animals too. Besides they had nothing better to do.