Schlafly led grass-roots campaigns against Communism, abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment and galvanized conservatives for nearly two generations, the New York Times said.
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EAGLE FORUM issued a statement on SCHLAFLY’s death, calling SCHLAFLY “an iconic American leader whose love for AMERICAN was surpassed only by her love of God and her family”.
Her book, Conscience of a Conservative, written in 1960 and originally self-published, sold 3 million copies and gave support to Sen.
Schlafly was a lawyer and was appointed to the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, by President Reagan where she served from 1985 to 1991. Schlafly graduated from Washington University in 1944 at age 19, going on to get a master’s degree in government from Harvard in 1945 and later graduating from Washington University School of Law.
Mrs. Schlafly, who has been called the “first lady of the conservative movement”, organized around numerous right-wing causes. Jean Kirkpatrick’s speech at the Republican National Convention in 1984 (until Reagan she had been a Humphrey Democrat) was a tour de force: The “San Francisco Democrats”, she reminded the delegates, “always blame America first”.
“Phyllis Schlafly was a persistent, nimble advocate of conservative principles and traditional values for almost a half century”.
But when word spread of her passing, while there were many conservatives who remembered her for her support of traditional family roles and her work with the Ronald Reagan Administration, numerous other comments were not so nice. “I was able to speak with her by phone only a few weeks ago, and she sounded as resilient as ever”. Earlier this year, she famously endorsed Donald Trump for POTUS.
But the amendment lost steam in the late 1970s under pressure from Mrs. Schlafly’s volunteer brigades – mainly women, majority churchgoing Christians (Mrs. Schlafly was Roman Catholic) and not a few of them lugging apple pies to cajole legislators.
She also had some controversial comments about the Violence Against Women Act, which made major strides in protecting victims of domestic violence. She would respond that politics was a just a hobby-albeit one that eventually transformed the GOP, by politically mobilizing vast numbers of grassroots conservatives.
She told LifeNews: “Phyllis will be missed yet her legacy will live on through my generation and in the young women who are fearless in the fight for the lives of the preborn and their mothers on their campuses and in their workplaces and communities”.
“What I am defending is the real rights of women”, Schlafly said during the years-long debate over the ERA.
National Right to Life vice president Tony Lauinger, who worked with Schlafly for over 30 years to retain the pro-life plank, praised her “devotion to the unborn child, her exceptional organizing skills, and her ability to educate and inspire others”.
Schlafly spent a lifetime trying to prevent LGBT people from gaining equality, while spreading an onslaught of falsehoods – and she did all of it despite having a gay son. That was not how Phyllis Schlafly looked at it.
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Schlafly’s latest book, “The Conservative Case for Trump”, with co-authors Ed Martin and Brett Decker, is set to be released on Tuesday, The Washington Times reported.
