Phyllis Schlafly today died in her home in St. Louis, MO with family present Eagle Forum, the organization she founded in 1972, confirmed.
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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”. The cause of death was not given. She didn’t mind taking on Republicans.
Schlafly maintained that the ERA would lead to a loss of workplace-safety protections for women, increased rights for gays and a strengthening of the pro-choice movement. Schlafly used to love opening speeches by thanking her husband for letting her be there. “Women already have all the rights that men have”.
She argued the ERA would end women’s privileges, including dependent benefits under Social Security, separate public bathrooms and exemption from the draft. But she was hardly a typical stay-at-home housewife/mother.
She attended the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in a wheelchair, frail but as determined and feisty as ever.
Schlafly was a staunch opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) during the “70s”.
“Phyllis Schlafly untiringly advanced a pro-life vision for America, one in which the unique contribution of women to the world – giving life- was respected and supported in law. She recognized America as the greatest political embodiment of those values”, the statement read.
ACU’s Schlapp was of a different view, however, and insisted that her long-term legacy will be “one of intellectual and moral rigor combined with the courage and will to understand that there are, in fact, American values that we must stand up and fight for”. To feminists, she was the worst kind of hypocrite, a person who claimed women’s place was in the home while she herself traveled the country giving speeches and published more than 20 books. It was true: Phyllis was a wife, mother, and homemaker. In a 1978 appearance at the IL capitol she was accompanied by backers bearing loaves of homemade bread.
She led a furious and ultimately successful effort to defeat the amendment in state legislatures where it had not passed. The scare tactic ensured the amendment fell three states short of ratification at the deadline in 1982.
She graduated from Washington University at age 19.
Her 26 book, released on the 44 anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, explained How the Republican Party Became Pro Life. She never gave up, never grew bitter, never let down her guard, and never quit doing her best.
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“I can remember 1980 when a lot of us didn’t think (Ronald) Reagan was an authentic conservative”, Schlafly told CNN in May. Schlafly’s first book “A Choice Not an Echo”, supporting the candidacy of Barry Goldwater in 1964, sold an unbelievable 3 milion copies, one for every 13 people who actually voted for the senator. She “was the authority on the battle for the soul of the GOP between conservatives and the establishment “kingmakers”. She called such criticism ridiculous. She was also co-founder of the anti-communist Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation.
