New York’s Civil Liberties Union calls Proposal 1 “a critical tool for all New Yorkers to exercise their rights.” Labeled as the Equal Rights Amendment, the action would amend the New York state Constitution to include ethnicity, national origin, age, disability or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, reproductive health and autonomy.

Why the need for all this? NYCLU states the current New York State Constitution “fails to prohibit discrimination against groups who have been historically targeted, including those with disabilities, LGBT people, immigrants, women and pregnant people.”

Those opposing the amendment believe that banning discrimination based on “national origin” could allow noncitizens to vote, and that the amendment would also take away parents’ right to have a say in their child’s medical care.

There is no question this proposal — located on the back of the ballot — has added one more divide to an already fractured state. Republicans are calling for a “no” vote while Democrats seeking a “yes.”

In this case, we defer to the Empire Center on Public Policy — an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank based in Albany — for its take. Simply put, the organization states: “Prop One and its added suspect classes threaten to throw New York civil rights law into chaos. If everyone is in a suspect class, then everyone has a right to have laws that discriminate against them drawn in the least restrictive narrowly tailored way to serve a compelling government purpose.

“Thus, the amendment may be unworkable unless New York courts devise workarounds to its application. And that means the amendment will place decisions on civil rights policy in the hands of the judiciary and not the Legislature where they belong.”

That synopsis adds a bit of clarity to what is a confusing Proposition 1. On that basis alone, we urge opposition.