Phyllis Schlafly – an appreciation

I came late to appreciation of Ronald Reagan, and to appreciation of Phyllis Schlafly, too, but I agree with NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez that the woman has earned a few “I told you so’s”, which interested me because I had previously included this well-reviewed book in The Bookshelf, and Lopez mentions the tome in her piece.

Writes Lopez:

While explaining why the big push for the federal Equal Rights Amendment ultimately failed, in her book Feminist Fantasies Schlafly reprinted some of her old objections: “ERA would put ‘gay rights’ into the U.S. Constitution because the word in the amendment is ‘sex,’ not ‘women.’ Eminent authorities have stated that ERA would legalize the granting of marriage licenses to same-sex couples and generally implement the gay and lesbian agenda.”

And guess what? In the latest example of Schlafly’s prescience, on Jan. 20, 2006, a Maryland court struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban based on the Old Line State’s Equal Rights Amendment. As Jessica Echard, who works with Schlafly at Eagle Forum (the public-policy nonprofit Schlafly heads) points out, “The Maryland ERA language is very similar to the federal ERA, which refers to no discrimination based on ‘sex’ not ‘women,’ Using the term ‘sex’ demands same-sex marriage because banning it would be denying rights based on sex.”

Agree or disagree with her politics, Phyllis Schlafly was right — the Hawaii supreme court was the first, in 1993, to rule that its state ERA mandated same-sex marriage.

At the time of the big ERA fight, of course, you might have thought she was nuts. “Hey, Phyllis, your sheet is showing,” a Doonesbury cartoon “joked.” Famously, during a debate at Illinois State University in 1973, the late feminist mother Betty Friedan angrily declared, “I consider you a traitor to your sex, an Aunt Tom.” Friedan said that she wanted to burn Schlafly at the stake. For Schlafly, Friedan’s fury came in handy. As Donald T. Critchlow recalls in Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism, Schlafly replied, “I’m glad you said that because it just shows the intemperate nature of proponents of the ERA.”

I’ve gotta get that book!