“Mother, writer, lawyer and president-founder of the Eagle Forum, her contributions to the conservative movement can not be understated”.
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Never really a pundit, Schlafly, who died yesterday at 92, was nonetheless a familiar face and voice on the television landscape, whether appearing in support of Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, fighting the Equal Rights Amendment in the ’70s or supporting Donald Trump just this year.
She later helped lead efforts to defeat the proposed constitutional amendment that would have outlawed gender discrimination, galvanizing the party’s right. “A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother”. Her job included testing ammunition by firing machine guns.
Citing Schlafly’s views about homosexuals, women and immigrants – she was an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage, abortion rights and loosening USA border restrictions – protesters said she went against the most fundamental principles for which the university stood. She single handedly killed it in the 1970s by appealing to primal fears over unisex bathrooms and women in combat, issues that four decades later continue to resonate politically. She never surrendered her principles and she never gave in to intimidation. In the days leading up to the commencement there were several protests regarding her degree award; Schlafly described these protesters as “a bunch of losers”. He declined, but she ran and narrowly lost in a predominantly Democratic district.
Large numbers of able Republican women hold public office today, many of whom were inspired to get into the arena by Phyllis Schlafly, but none of them have her influence. She also wrote a weekly column in a newspaper.
“I can remember 1980 when a lot of us didn’t think (Ronald) Reagan was an authentic conservative”, Schlafly told CNN in May. Phyllis Stewart graduated as class valedictorian and won a full scholarship to a Catholic women’s college, but she decided that the place was not academically rigorous enough for her and transferred after her first year to Washington University.
Schlafly received a law degree in 1978, and raised six children. During the ceremony, hundreds of the 14,000 attendees, including one third of the graduating students and some faculty, silently stood and turned their backs to Schlafly in protest.
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Phyllis Schlafly wasn’t based in the usual centers of political power, Washington and NY, so even her fellow conservatives have had a tendency to forget that she existed, and certainly to forget how much influence she wielded on the people who count the most in the American system: voters. Schlafly acknowledged her son’s sexual orientation and said it’s not a and indignation for the conservatives. The duo contended that juxtaposing the family name with alcoholic beverages would damage Mrs. Schlafly’s conservative reputation. Schlafly’s husband died in 1993.
