In the 1960s, her self-published book, “A Choice not an Echo”, sold more than three million copies and helped plant the seeds for a conservative revival in the 1980s under Reagan. She is perhaps best known for defeating the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the 1970s-an accomplishment for which feminist icon Betty Friedan said she should “burn at the stake”.
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She wrote countless columns and books on these subjects (I wrote one with her on Obama’s assault on religious freedom), many of which were dismissed as “alarmist” even as their warnings came true.
Schlafly’s love of Trump was hardly surprising: For decades, she has fought to build a Republican Party that rejects immigrants, stirs up fears of communists (and now Muslims), condemns “globalism”, eschews “political correctness”, and does it all with the veneer of protecting the “traditional family”.
Phyllis Schlafly passed away today at the age of 92 and today leading pro-life advocates are remembering the pro-life champion.
“She drove me insane because she ran through every door that foremothers worked so hard to open, NEVER saying thanks and then used her position to attack people trying to open other doors for women”, emailed Patricia Schroeder, a frequent Schlafly foil during her quarter century in the House of Representatives starting in 1973.
In March this year, Schlafly endorsed Republican candidate Donald Trump for president. She opened my eyes to the rights and wrongs in worldly government back in my college days as she spoke about the Reagan era and all that Reagan’s pro-America efforts were doing for our great country. Among her survivors is her son, John F. Schlafly, 65, who is gay.
She later helped lead efforts to defeat the proposed constitutional amendment that would have outlawed gender discrimination, galvanizing the party’s right.
Schlafly would go on to say that she was most proud of founding the Eagle Forum in 1975, a conservative organization still in existence, according to NPR.
Schlafly’s lifelong mantra was that a woman’s role is to be mother and wife. Schlafly was born on August 15, 1924, and grew up in St. Louis during the Great Depression in a Republican household. Her parents were Republican but not politically involved. She herself home-schooled her six children.
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There are few who, in their lifetime, have done more to advance the conservative, founding principles of America than Phyllis Schlafly.
