The Final Repudiation Of Phyllis Schlafly
Rob Boston printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Wed Sep 07, 2016 at 08:12:08 AM EST

Monday night around 9:40 I received an email with a curious subject line. "The Greatest American Woman, R.I.P.," it read.

"Who could that be?" I wondered as I opened the message. Came the answer: Phyllis Schlafly.

"Today, Phyllis Schlafly died like she lived - with dignity and a smile," wrote Ed Martin, president of the Eagle Forum, a group Schlafly founded. "Surrounded by her family, Phyllis passed away and entered her reward with the Lord. Her family, friends and staff will miss her. Her nation will be eternally grateful."

Schlafly was a spouse, mother and grandmother. Some people are genuinely saddened by her passing. But the measure of a public person is not taken by the reaction of her family and friends. We have to look at Schlafly's impact on the larger culture, and a sober assessment of her life's work shows that her impact was not good.

Schlafly was best known for defeating the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the 1970s, but her larger  mission was one of seeking to deny people their rights - just because those people failed to live up to her religious ideals.

In recent years, Schlafly's Eagle Forum turned its ire on the LGBT community, with a flood of hysterical op-eds and articles. At one point, Schlafly even proposed impeaching judges who upheld marriage equality and called on Congress to cut off all federal aid to any state that permitted the practice.

Her nation will be eternally grateful? Sorry, but I have to disagree. Schlafly's vision of America was one where right-wing Christians of her stripe - she was a traditionalist Roman Catholic but often sounded like a fundamentalist, Religious Right-style evangelical - ruled the roost. Others were second-class citizens. Most Americans aren't grateful for her tireless work to roll back women's reproductive rights or the hate she spread against those Americans she derisively called "the gays."

Firmly grounded in an "Ozzie and Harriet" mythology, Schlafly was clueless about the realities of modern life. In 1981, she told a U.S. Senate committee that women who are sexually harassed have only themselves to blame. Lecherous bosses, said Schlafly, "hardly ever ask sexual favors of women from whom the certain answer is `No.' Virtuous women are seldom accosted by unwelcome sexual propositions or familiarities, obscene talk or profane language."

She opposed equal pay for women, fought efforts to make child care more affordable and plentiful and opposed programs to give young people sex education in public schools. (Sex ed., she once opined, is "a principal cause of teenage pregnancy.")

Schlafly's views belong to an America of the past. They're anchored in the America she idealized - the fake 1950 vision of a white, Christian nation where schoolkids prayed on command and God gave us nuclear weapons to scare off the Reds.

Hers was an America where wives graciously submitted to their husbands. Schlafly often began speeches by thanking her wealthy husband for allowing her to be out that night. The irony is that she made a career out of traveling the country telling women that they didn't need careers.

Schlafly's Potemkin Village of 1950s nostalgia collapsed long ago. It collapsed when some Americans had the temerity to point out that the vision didn't include them - and noted, by the way, the 1950s weren't so great for lots of people: blacks living in the Jim Crow South, women fighting in court for the right to work in certain professions, Jewish families seeking the right to live in neighborhoods that sought to exclude them and atheists daring to speak against the "God and country" rhetoric of the Eisenhower Era, to name a few.

Schlafly's supporters will plug along. The Eagle Forum is riven by internal division right now, and a dissident faction, including some of her own children, sought to oust Schlafly from the group.

That matter is in court and will play out there, but in a sense, the outcome does not matter. The factions are fighting over table crumbs. Phyllis Schlafly does not represent the future. Her vision is firmly grounded in the past, and, with luck, the nation will continue speeding past it so rapidly that soon none of us will even be able to see its vague outlines.

If you doubt that, simply look at the world around you. You will see that Schlafly's vision has been repudiated. It was repudiated this morning when millions of women suited up for work in a myriad of professions. It was repudiated all over the nation by same-sex couples, now legally married, who woke up and started another routine day.

You can see the repudiation in the eyes of immigrant families working hard to make the American Dream real for them. It's reflected in the faces of Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist and Wiccan public school students who long ago decided they won't accept second-class status.

Schlafly is repudiated every time a young woman makes her own decisions about reproductive choice. She is repudiated every time trans kids stand up for their rights in a public school. Her vision is repudiated every time a woman files a lawsuit to block sexual harassment in the workplace.

Schlafly dreamed of an America based on rejection and exclusion. That is not our America. Our America is better than Phyllis Schlafly. 

Of course, some are trying to drag us back, but the story of our nation is one that - despite the fits and starts and often frustratingly glacial pace of change - moves toward more freedom, not less. The story of America is not the story of Phyllis Schlafly. We have repudiated her narrow and mean-spirited vision. We know that it's a relic of a nastier, more unpleasant time.  We won't go back there.

Yes, Phyllis Schlafly helped defeat the ERA. But she lost the larger cultural war. And for that, we can be truly grateful.

 





Display:
Maybe in some areas of the country, but in others non-Christians are still very much second class citizens (if they're that lucky).  The more vocal non-Christian religious groups (although demonized by the churches) may have some level of autonomy, but the persecution, denial of services (or poorly done services), the attempts to force people to convert, and all of that is still very much alive and well.

As long as people like myself are too scared to oppose the churches anymore (at least at the local level - see my diary entry about evidence violence is more common than thought), we are less than citizens.  Yes, there are some people who have been opposing the churches in public around here.  They haven't learned yet how dangerous that can be.  (I also suspect that they're fairly wealthy - riches do tend to insulate one from "consequences", including the Christian "consequences for actions"!)

I'm tired of being a second or third class citizen.  I'm tired of people constantly criticizing and trying to force me (back) into THEIR mold.  I've broken the mold others forced me into, and for the last 13 years, been on my OWN path - finally, at "late middle age", and my hopes of a future are thin and weak, because of the same culture that encourages a single religion and represses the different.  If I can finish my doctorate, then maybe, just maybe, it will help me get my foot in the door on decent employment and a chance to escape this hell we live in.  There are a lot of if's there, however.  I am far more than the brainless manual grunt laborer they had me pegged for (and worth more than minimum wage/no benefits/no vacations/no breaks)!  Seriously, with a M.A. in hand, Christians were trying to force me to work at a burger joint and telling me to shut up about trying to find employment if I DIDN'T take a job there (which I cannot handle anyway because of health)!

I wish I lived in your America.  The America I see is the same one seen by BLM.  The same one that encourages corporations to bulldoze sacred lands in order to put in a profit-driven pipeline.  The same one that refuses to recognize Militant Christian Terrorism (and how prevalent it really is), and who ignores the violence done to people who don't fit the mold selected for them by the elites (and their servants the preachers/churches).  The one that railroaded the Occupy movement.  The one hated by people from around the world because it's a bully.

Schlafly is just one of a whole bunch of people that have worked hard to force their will on others.  This will get me criticized, but IMO, good riddance to bad trash (I also said the same about some other pieces of garbage who had been a terror to those 'on the outside').  She and her kind are the reason why we live in hell, and are not citizens with the same rights and privileges enjoyed by others.


by ArchaeoBob on Sat Sep 10, 2016 at 10:48:57 AM EST

Ding, dong, the witch is dead! I lived in Illinois and remember well how she took cookies to the legislators with her throng of devotees and urged them to deny the ERA. Maybe now the old harpy is rotting in her grave, the ERA will be passed - about 50 years late. If there IS an afterlife, which I don't believe in, she darn sure isn't in the good place.

by phatkhat on Sat Sep 10, 2016 at 12:33:18 PM EST
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The best blog ever! Do you have any guidelines or suggestions for aspiring authors? I'm thinking about launching my own website happy wheels game quickly, but I'm a bit confused on where to begin. Initiating with a free platform like WordPress or going with a premium alternative--which would you recommend?

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WWW Talk To Action


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Will the Air Force Do Anything To Rein In Its Dynamic Duo of Gay-Bashing, Misogynistic Bloggers?
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History Advisor to Members of Congress Completely Twists Jefferson's Words to Support Muslim Ban
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"Christian Fighter Pilot" Calls First Lesbian Air Force Academy Commandant a Liar
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Catholic Right Leader Unapologetic about Call for 'Death to Liberal Professors' -- UPDATED
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Controlling Information
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Is Bannon Fifth-Columning the Pope?
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`So-Called Patriots' Attack The Rule Of Law
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The Legacy of George Wallace
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Prince and DeVos Families at Intersection of Radical Free Market Privatizers and Religious Right
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Respect for Others? or Political Correctness?
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"America - love it or LEAVE!"
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"Faked!" Meme
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ArchaeoBob (165 comments)
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My wife told me today of an experience she had this last week, where she was proselytized by a McDonald's employee while in the store. ......
ArchaeoBob (163 comments)
See if you recognize names on this list
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ArchaeoBob (169 comments)
Unions: A Labor Day Discussion
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Xulon (329 comments)
History of attitudes towards poverty and the churches.
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ArchaeoBob (148 comments)
Alternate economy medical treatment
Dogemperor wrote several times about the alternate economy structure that dominionists have built.  Well, it's actually made the news.  Pretty good article, although it doesn't get into how bad people could be (have been)......
ArchaeoBob (90 comments)
Evidence violence is more common than believed
Think I've been making things up about experiencing Christian Terrorism or exaggerating, or that it was an isolated incident?  I suggest you read this article (linked below in body), which is about our great......
ArchaeoBob (214 comments)

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