Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History Modern Conservative Movement 20240712

Mallory factor. Prof. Factor todays topic is cultural conservatism and the religious right. Our discussion will center on the genesis of the pro family grassroots movement. Our speaker will share with you never before shared details about the ordinary people that sparked culture shifting events and a movement that led to the rise of the religious right and the nomination of Ronald Reagan. Youre going to hear about the role of bringing people from across denominational lines to fight the equal rights amendment. That fight led to the formation of a voting bloc that remains an unstoppable Political Force and has become the base of todays Republican Party. But enough hearing from me. Id like to introduce now our guest lecturer, Phyllis Schlafly. Shes been called the godmother of the modern conservative movement. Shes been a conservative leader since 1964 when she selfpublished her best selling book a choice, not an echo. Shes been a leader of the pro Family Movement since 1972 when she started her National Volunteer lobbying organization, eagle forum. In a tenyear battle, mrs. Schlafly trained and led a Grassroots Army to victory over radical feminists when they stopped when she stopped the ratification of the equal rights amendment. Economist George Gilder wrote in his book men and marriage, and i quote, when the histories of this era are seriously written, Phyllis Schlafly will take her place among a tiny number of leaders who made a decisive and permanent difference. She changed the Political Landscape of her country. Gilder went on to call mrs. Schlafly one of the countrys best speakers and debater and best pamphlet tier since thomas paine. Phyllis who is a young 87 years old, still publishes a weekly newsletter and has written or edited more than 20 books on subjects as varied as family and feminism, the judiciary, child care and phonics which we use with our children. Phyllis is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Washington University in st. Louis. She worked her way through college by working the night shift testing. 30 and. 50 caliber ammunition at a local factory. Shes received her masters degree in government from harvard university, her juris doctorate from Washington University law school in 1978. Shes the mother of six children, she was named illinois mother of the year. And the ladies home journal named her one of the most important women of the 20th century. It gives me a great deal of pleasure and a great honor to welcome mrs. Phyllis schlafly. [applause] phyllis thank you very much, Mallory Factor for all of those nice words and thank you students for caring to learn about details of American History that may not be in your textbooks, and thanks to the guests who are coming today. I appreciate this opportunity to talk to you about some other side lights of the issue that other speakers may not have covered. You know, youve had all of these distinguished lecturers who have preceded me in these series, and im sure youve read all the books that they recommend edmond burke and john lock and russell kirk and ludwig von mesis and john adams and blackstone and those are the scholars who laid the foundation for what we understand is the conservative movement but today i want to take an example of something that has nothing to do with the conservative movement but shows how technology can do a leap forward that could not be done in any other way. In 1975, the people who were meeting and talking about their gripes against the British Crown were all trying to make the king shape up and be a good fellow and recognize their rights. All of their entreaties were addressed to the king, and the idea of not having a king really hadnt occurred to them. When they had their convention in 19 in 1775, i think their petition was called the olive branch petition. Theyre continuing to make entreaties to the king to give them their englishmans rights. That was in july of 1775. In january of 19 of 1776, a little pamphlet was published. It was called common sense by thomas paine. It was only 46 pages. It wasnt written in the scholarly method of those other writers who wrote at that time. It was written for the guys who went to the coffee shop. The guys who went to the pub. It was in plain language for plain people. And basically he said weve got to get rid of the king. And it was published january 10th, 46 pages. And by july the 4th, we had the declaration of independence. Its one of the most amazing literary accomplishments in literature. And it probably is the best selling book in history considering the population that we had at that time. It had it gripped people. It created the movement for independence. It was Something Like it was a different technology. It was Something Like moving from the horse and buggy to the automobile or from the typewriter to the internet. Thats what the pamphleteer did. He made it the pamphlet of the new technology, the language of ordinary people. He didnt have his piece decorated with latin phrases. It was just direct, political language that anybody could understand. Now lets fast forward to the 1930s. The time of the great depression. High unemployment. Even worse than today. But even then, americans were not looking to government to solve their problems. Franklin roosevelt, who was expected to be and was elected president in 1932, supposedly to end the depression, ran on the democratic platform. And let me tell you what that 1932 democratic platform said. We advocate an immediate and drastic reduction of government expenditures by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus, and eliminating extravagance to accomplish a saving of not less than 25 in the cost of the federal government. We favor a federal budget annually balanced. Well, that sounds like the tea party, doesnt it . It certainly doesnt sound like the new deal which professor fulsome i think explained to you in a previous lecture. Fdr, Franklin Roosevelt knew that the american that was what the American People wanted to hear. However, once he was elected, he embarked on a big spending program, expanded bureaucracy, use of the Commerce Clause to do all kinds of things that we thought then and now think were unconstitutional, the same arguments that were used in the obamacare case that was argued before the Supreme Court last week. By the time fdr ran for his third term, a prominent democrat had left him. The American People really hated fdr. Very much like the significant number of people who really hate obama today. Nevertheless, they elected him four times. That does not mean the people approved of his spending programs and what he was doing. He certainly did not solve the unemployment problem as professor fulsome has explained to you. He spent the money in states where they would get him votes to be reelected. But they continued to do spending and continued to be reelected. And then another thing happened which brought a very little book into the fore. It was written by an austrian named frederick hiyak who had become a british citizen. And its a very short book in which he directly attacked collectivism, the planned economy, and the whole idea that Central Landing was the way to run an economy. And he took the position that in order to preserve liberty, we had to make a choice, do we want the government to plan everything, or do we want to have the rule of law . It sounds like ron paul really the way it was written. But in any event, the initial printing was only 2,000 books. And then something happened to bring it to the grassroots. And that was that the Readers Digest reprinted it. Now, its hard to remember or believe today but the Readers Digest then had 5 million subscribers, and everybody read the Readers Digest in those years, and so this reached the plain people, the grassroots, and they believed it, and it had a tremendous impact on our country in explaining what was wrong with the new deal and how we didnt want to go to Central Planning of our economy. Now, i happened to be at the Harvard Graduate School that year, and dont let anybody tell you that opportunities for education for women only started when the feminists came along because i was getting my degree at the Harvard Graduate School in 1945, long before all these feminists were born, and competed with all the guys, had no problem. And hiyak came there to speak on his crosscountry tour. And i remember how the professors gathered us to explain to us how we were not supposed to believe what hiyak was saying. They were preparing us for his coming and how to refute him and to answer him. And they were all new dealers, my professors at harvard then. I remember one whose favorite saying was, we shouldnt talk about balancing the budget. We should talk about budgeting the balance. And then we had another one who devoted one whole lecture in his constitutional law class to telling us that Henry Wallace was the greatest political thinker of the 20th century. Now if you studied your history you know he was the closest thing to a communist we ever had anywhere near the white house and he was so way out left wing, that he was too bad even for roosevelt who dumped him as Vice President when he ran for his fourth term in 1944. And replayed him with harry truman. But in any event, the conventional wisdom in america then was that the planned economy was the wave of the future and the way to go. And the there was a lot of opposition that was building to roosevelt. There were a number of organizations organized by the grassroots to oppose him. There are only two that i know that have survived till this day. One is the association of American Physicians and surgeons, which is the conservative doctors and they filed three briefs in this obamacare case, but they started in the mid1940s, and the other is americas future which still publishes a newspaper and still is around. But most of the others died out. And so what was the kind of opposition, political opposition to all this . Well, you look to the Republican Party. Now, the Republican Party in those years was pretty well run by what we call the kingmakers. And they were headquartered in new york and particularly in the chase manhattan bank. And they thought they were divinely appointed to select the republican nominee who would not very much challenge what roosevelt was doing. In 1940, they forced on the republicans a man named Wendell Willkie who wasnt even a republican. He had been a democrat, and he was kind of a 90day wonder. They enlisted all the media. They did a lot of crooked things, and they put him over as the nominee and he ran for president on the republican ticket and lost to roosevelt. And then in 1944, they tried a governor, former governor of new york, named tom dewey, the one whom somebody called looking like the little man on the wedding cake. And he didnt do very well in 1944 and then came 1948 and they had the gall to nominate tom dewey again, which we the grassroots were very much opposed to. But they forced him on us and there was a lot of opposition to the grassroots. I remember Alice Roosevelt longworth said you cant make a souffle rise twice, but at any rate, tom dewey was the candidate. And there were all kinds of wonderful issues that he could have talked about. The truman scandals, the korean war, the communist infiltration of our government, the alger hiss case, but tom dewey waged a me too campaign and he lost. And roosevelt was elected for his fourth term. Then came 1946, the off year election and by this time, the grassroots were really getting angry about the whole thing. And they went out and carried on a campaign under the slogan had enough, and they elected what was the biggest republican majority in congress in the 20th century. So as we approach the Republican Convention of 1952, everybody expected a republican year. And the contestants were bob taft, senator bob taft who had the support of the grassroots and was, i think, the first authentic conservative as we understand it in the modern terminology. However, i can tell you in those days, nobody called themselves conservatives. It was not a word that we used. He was just a run of the mill garden variety republican. And the kingmakers put up eisenhower who was a military hero whom they had installed as a University President to keep him safe until the time of the convention so that he wouldnt have to take any stands on controversial issues. But the grassroots wanted bob taft because he spoke up for typical american values, foreign and domestic. And he had his book Foreign Policy for americans, another short book which we liked and we distributed, and he was the guy we hoped to nominate in 1952. Well, if you read about it, you will find that it was another one of these crooked conventions, and they succeeded in nominating eisenhower after they went to the governor of california, who was then earl warren, and promised him the next vacancy on the Supreme Court if he would deliver the big california delegation for the vote on the Credentials Committee and the vote on the rules committee, both of which they had changed. And he did. And eisenhower was not part of the deal, but he was persuaded to fulfill that commitment that his handlers had made, and it was a terrible, terrible mistake because the Eisenhower Court was really the beginning of all of these bad decisions. We began to discuss later and find out what was happening. In in fact, eisenhower was asked one day, did you make any mistakes while you were president and he said yes, two, and theyre both sitting on the Supreme Court. But anyway, eisenhower was nominated and we all supported him and he won. But after that, we began to realize the enormity of the communist threat both the soviet missile threat and the infiltration of our government by communist spies and people who were spreading our secret information to the soviet union. There was also infiltration in the universities and in hollywood. And we had investigations of communism by the various congressional committees and reports that were widely read by the American People. In those days, everybody could read. And its not like today where we have all this widespread illiteracy in our country but everybody could read and they did read the congressional reports. And they understood what communism was and why we wanted to get rid of the infiltration in our government because the grassroots took up the study of communism from the congressional reports. Now, in 1956, theres one man again, you talk about what one person can do. But one man named Fred Schwartz had an enormous impact in building the conservative movement. He was an australian physician who was invited one day to debate a communist, and he beat him and then he realized how evil communism really is. And he realized that the United States was the main battleground. So he came to this country and he worked in this country for 50 years. He had an enormous impact in building the start of the conservative movement. He brought thousands of people into what we didnt call conservatives. Again, were not using the term of conservative but it was the anticommunist movement so that we had a grassroots that was he will well informed and i got him to put on his first school. He conducted these fiveday schools, 9 00 to 5 00 all on communism. He had a couple other speakers shz gave several of the speeches himself but had he other distinguished speakers on the subject. And i assisted him in putting on the first one in 1956 at the tower grove baptist church. St. Louis. And he realized what he could do by training people with a fiveday class. So he then had them all over the country and all the time i meet people who came into the conservative movement attending one of the schwartz schools. It was such a big thing that when he got to california, he filled the Los Angeles Sports Arena with 16,000 people for one of his schools. Now, he ultimately has a book that ought to be in your library called you can trust the communists to to be communists. In other words, unlike some of our enemies today, the communists told us exactly what they were going to do. We are going to bury you and they told us exactly how they were going to do it, and the reason his book, which probably didnt have a big sale but the reason its so readable is it was all his speeches and a lot of books which start out as speeches are much more readable for the grassroots and ordinary people and he called this organization the christian anticommunism crusade. So it had a certain evangelical aspect to it. So at the end of this first school, i said, well, weve got bring the catholics in too and have them join. No, he said you cant put the catholics and the protestants in the same room. It just isnt going to work this the catholics need to have their own organization and we got them to start their own organization and we promoted study groups all over the country. At one time, think we had 5,000 of these study groups because it was based on the congressional reports, and i repackaged it for Republican Federation for the dar and for the Catholic Group which was called the card and a half foundation. So people were learning about government, learning about our enemy enemies, learning about communism all the time and just to show you what the ordinary republican in those days, were talking about the 19, late 1950s, early 1960s, thought, i looked up some of the resolutions passed by the Illinois Federation of republican women, which was just you know, theyre just ordinary women republican volunteers who liked to be supportive and support their candidates and politics, and they had resolutions against the centralization of power in washington, against u. N. Treaties and unesco, against the drive for disarmament. They had resolutions that demanded victory over communism, full support of the House Committee on unamerican activities. They had a resolution to stop all federal aid to education, wipe it out. They had resolutions which condemned the Supreme Court decisions that were siding with the communists. They had resolutions which condemned the accumulated power in the executive branch and the president , the sprawling bureaucracy, the weakening of constitutional restraints that permitted advocates of socialism and communism to make inroads in national security, and further resolutions against the further centralization of power in the federal government. Again, nobody used the word conservative. They were just gardenvariety republicans. It sounds kind of like ron paul today. But nobody called them extremistss that is just the way people thought, especially in the middle west. And our files have a whole file of letters from congressmans name thank you for sending us this resolution. We agree 100 with it and that was the thinking of people in those days. Now, one of the things that we were worried about in those days were bad Supreme Court decisions that were siding with the communists. And even the American Bar Association was on our side in this fight. Even the American Bar Association. The American Bar Association had a committee that put out this report on communist tactics, strategy and objectives which sets forth 10 of the worst procommunist decisions of the Supreme Court. This was put in the congressional record first by senator bridges and then later by senator dirksen and i will bet millions of copies went out. It became a major vehicle to educate the grassroots about what the work was doing about communism. And also in those years, you can one of the most popular speakers was a clarence minion of the Notre Dame Law School and he wrote a little book, less than 100 pages called key to peace compo and talked about the religious foundation of our country and a lot of the conservative ideas that we have today. Again, we are not using the term conservative. At this is just the way people believed and thought in those years of the late 1950s and early 1960s. And then we looked around for a president. Who are we going to run for president . And somebody suggested a senator from arizona. Well, nobody from arizona had ever been elected president before. Who is this guy from arizona . Why, you know at that time we didnt have any Baseball Team that was farther west or south in st. Louis. Nobody went out to arizona in those days. You had to come from ohio or pennsylvania or new york to be president. But anyway, we all picked on Barry Goldwater as the guy we wanted so he had to have a book also. So he had a book. When you run for president , you have to have a book and his book was called the conscience of a conservative which soon came out in paperback and also had a big sale. And we all know that actually the book was written by brett thousand else who is the father of the guy that runs that Media Organization today. But dean manion, dean Clarence Manion gave it the title and this is the first time people began to call themselves conservative. After the conscience of a conservative came out, this was kind of proof that conservatives were not heartless people. They really had a conscience and we began probably to call ourselves conservatives. And so we were studying all the time and reading widely. Reading the books of the excommunist like budenz and chambers and so to know what it was all about and beginning to plan for Barry Goldwater. We made a try for him in chicago in 1960 and that is when we didnt have enough votes and Barry Goldwater came out on the tv and said conservatives this is our year. Go home and i will a you in four years. So that is what we did and we distributed his book and did some more studying. And one of the major factors in building the ranks of the conservatives was this paper that called none dare call it treason by john stormer. It was little longer than some of these other paperbacks but it really set forth what had happened to our country and the dangers of communism and the dangers of Central Planning and the dangers of overgrown bureaucracy and high taxation. He published it himself. He sold 7 million copies. And that was a major educational tool of the grassroots who are now beginning to come alive. Now, as we approached the 1964 convention of the Republican Party, which was in chicago in 1964, i had kind of a copy of Republican National convention and i had been to all of them beginning in 1952. And most of the people who go to republican inventions as delegates are firsttimers. The majority of them have never been before and they dont know what to expect. And they dont know how it really operates. And i figured they ought to know what went before they went. So i wrote my little book called a choice, not an echo. And i plunged in getting a printing of 25,000. I thought that would be it. I ended up selling 3 million out of my garage. And they went to all the people who were delegates or who were interested in the next nomination. And it had a tremendous impact. Every week, i would meet some public official who says i came into the conservative movement reading open to a choice not an echo in 1964. Most political literature just simply revs up your juices for your prejudices but mine was persuasive. Goldwaters opponent was nelson rockefeller, a former new york governor and michael persuaded rockefeller people to switch and support goldwater and persuaded Lyndon Johnson to switch and support goldwater. So we had the 1964 convention and we nominated goldwater. That was the conservatives taking up the Republican Party and as you know, goldwater went down to a smashing defeat for many reasons. We dont have time to talk about it here. But at any rate, 27 Million People voted for goldwater and they never regretted it. And that was really the start of coming together in the conservative movement. Now, conservatives kind of developed a complex because of this defeat. We kind of thought well, i guess we cant really elect a real conservative president. And that is why we went for nixon on the next round. We thought he was the best we could do which turned out to be a mistake. But in any event, the conservative movement was there and the anticommunist movement was there. But that wasnt enough. And then Something Else happened. Congress voted out a new constitutional amendment supported by the feminist called the equal rights amendment. Everybody was for it. Well, only 23 people in the house voted against it. There were only i think eight in the senate who voted against it. President nixon, president ford, and president carter were all enthusiastic supporters of it. All the governors. The media was 99 in favor of it. Everybody was for it. Everybody who was anybody in politics from left to right, from ted kennedy to george wallace, they all endorsed it. And i was asked to speak about it and made a speech about it which then turned into my Phyllis Schlafly report which i had started a few years before. It looked exactly the same for 45 years. The Phyllis Schlafly report. I wrote one called what is wrong with equal rights for women . And sent it out to my friends. I sold the report by subscription for five dollars a year so they were mostly women i have worked with in the Republican Party. And one day, the next month one of them called up and that said phyllis, we took your report to the legislature and they voted down the equal rights amendment. And so then i thought we had been. And i invited 100 women from 30 states to meet men in st. Louis and put them on a bus and took them down to the riverfront. We went on one of these show boats and i climbed up on the stage where they do all of these melodramas and i told them we are going to go out and beat the equal rights amendment. At that point, nobody thought it was possible. They felt we were crazy because in the first year, the supporters got 30 states. They only needed 38. Three fourths of the country. So we took it on and it is a long story. But we had big fights in state after state. In illinois, it was the front line and illinois voted on it every year for 10 years and we kept beating them and they kept coming back. Five states that had previously voted for it rescinded. And this was not a battleground in every state but the main battlegrounds were illinois, florida, and north carolina. And a little bit in missouri and oklahoma. And then the rescinding states. And we kept beating them. And when e. R. A. Came i havent got time to tell you all the things wrong with it, but they offered this amendment to put women in the constitution. Well, youve read the constitution. You know men are not in the constitution. Its a completely sex neutral document. It only talks about citizens, persons, electors, president s, and we the people. It is completely sex neutral. Women have had every constitutional right men have had since the day it was written. So that was a fraud. They were not able to offer any benefit to women. I testified in 41 state legislative hearings and in only one state did one of their people come in and say our state has a law that discriminates that e. R. A. Will remedy. They had a law that said that wives could not make homemade wine without their husbands consent. So for this we need a constitutional amendment . You have got to be kidding. But when they went on tv, they made women think e. R. A. Was going to give them a raise but e. R. A. Would have nothing to do with employment because the employment laws were already sex neutral. And e. R. A. Would be to make every law sex neutral. The classic discriminatory law was the draft law and we were then in the vietnam war. We had a draft and my daughters i had daughters and sons that age and they thought it was the craziest thing anybody said. Are you going to give women a constitutional amendment and the first thing is they have to sign up for the draft like their brothers . You have to be kidding. It was unsalable. But anyway, it went on. Now, when youre making out of congress, they were given a time limit of seven years and as they were moving along, they realized they might not make it. And so bella was then in congress. You remember she was the funny woman with the hats and she got congress to give her 5 million to have a special convention in houston which was supposed to be used to ratify the equal rights amendment. And they had their meeting. And it was an enormous media event. There were 3000 media people who went to houston to cover this. You know, the feminist had so much free press all the time. And they were there and giving them great coverage. Well, the feminists passed the resolution saying they wanted the equal rights amendment. But then that did not satisfy them. They began to tell the rest of their agenda. They said they wanted abortion funded by the taxpayers. So they had a big thing about that and for all these resolutions they are letting off balloons and they are prancing around and then the next one was they endorsed the whole list of gay rights. We are talking about 1977 now. This was not agreeable to the American People. But they are putting all of this on television. They are prancing around with these victories. They wanted universal government supported daycare. You have to understand, the feminists. The feminists believe that women are victims of the patriarch and it is up to new laws and the constitution to remedy the secondclass citizenship of women. Absolutely false. The american women are the most fortunate class of people who ever lived on the face of the earth. We can do anything we want to do but anyway that the line theyre putting out. And their prime example of the oppression of women by the patriarchy is that society expects mothers to look after their babies and that burden has got to be lifted from them by the taxpayers and we need to have the government run and regulate daycare. They passed all these resolutions. And they whooped it up and had a big old time and every important wellknown feminist was there doing this. Betty frieden was making an impassioned plea to invite the lesbians to come and join them and they passed all the resolutions. And i remember after that was over, somebody asked the governor one day, are you for the equal rights amendment . Well, he said do you mean the old e. R. A. Or the new e. R. A. . He said, i was for equal pay for equal work. But after they went down to houston and got tangled up with all those abortionists and lesbians, i can tell you e. R. A. Will never pass in missouri. And of course, he was absolutely right. And after that convention, they never got it. They never won another vote. E. R. A. Has probably been voted on 25 times since then in various committees or legislatures or even referenda and it has never one anywhere else. Their own 5 million conference which they were so proud of simply destroyed them. And but the fight went on because then they ran to jimmy carter and got him to give them a threeyear extension. And the cartoonists had a field day with this. This was like giving a baseball game three more innings when the game was not tied up. But they did not get any more states. And they didnt get it and at the end of the first seven years which we considered the real and because that was the constitutional part we considered the extension illegal which a court did finally hold that the extension was illegal. And so, we had a Victory Party in 1979 which was the end of the seven years. And we proclaimed victory over and the press was so angry at me, they could hardly stand it. You are not supposed to win. Youre not going to win. The extension is there. And but it was important for all of these conservatives left over from the Goldwater Campaign to realize that it was possible to win. Now, the significant thing that happened in this e. R. A. Fight when i started out, i was holding my finger in the dike with a handful of my republican women friends and we would go to the state legislature and we were being successful. And then i realized about 1976 that we were going to need more help. And so that is when i decided where am i going to get more help . So that is when i went to the churches. And please come and join us. And i prayed that we could bring 1000 people to springfield, illinois for a demonstration. And that was the day on, i think it was april 26, 1976, that 1000 people did come to springfield, illinois. And our legislature had never seen anything like this before. And they came and showed them that we were opposed to e. R. A. So that is the day we invented the proFamily Movement. Now, in building my organization of first of all stop e. R. A. And then it morphing into eagle forum, i was very ecumenical. I didnt like to talk about religion. I combined the catholics, the protestants of all of the denominations, the evangelicals, the jews, the mormons i had them all in there. And the message is i dont care what your church is, we are all going to Work Together to beat the equal rights amendment. And i made them all get along. And this was the first time i can tell you, this was the first time a lot of catholics and baptists were in the same room together. And they just had to get along. That was just my policy. And so it was quite a coalition that we had. And when they all came together at this 1000 person demonstration at the capital, it was a visual demonstration of the proFamily Movement. And then we really swelled our ranks when the baptists joined us. That is when jerry foul well started his moral majority. And when he came to another demonstration, we actually had 10,000 people at another demonstration at this from field capital. So this is the building of the proFamily Movement. And the realization that people of faith and people who have similar values could Work Together for a goal they shared. Now, initially, the roe v. Wade and abortion was not playing that role because when roe v. Wade was handed down by the court in 1973, the catholic bishops jumped into fight it. Well, the protestants were not going to join up with something the catholic bishops were running so they hung back. And it was several years before the protestants came in. Of course, they did finally and now they have kind of taken over the movement and that is just fine. Everybody is working together fine against abortion. But it was in about 1976 that we realized that one of the reasons the feminist wanted e. R. A. Was they felt it was the key to locking of abortion funding into the constitution. The Supreme Court had handed down a decision the harris v. Roe decision which said you do not have a cost of delusional right to have your abortion paid for. But they wanted it paid for and they thought they could get that through e. R. A. Because they would charge that it was sex discriminatory to deny this money. And of course, they made that case in a number of courts and they have made it elsewhere too. But that show that if you were for e. R. A. You were also for abortion. And so they joined ranks with us finally. And that tended to continue to build the proFamily Movement. And eventually it took on other issues also. But that was the start when we put it together. Now, when they had their big shindig in houston in 1977 financed by the taxpayers, we took another hall of crosstown in houston and invited people to come at their own expense and to attend our profamily rally. And we packed 20,000 people into a hall that was only supposed to hold 18,000. And they all came at their own expense. And i think that is the day proFamily Movement went into the political vocabulary because that is what we called ourselves. And that would have been in 1976. So the fight went on but eventually they didnt get any more states after that Houston Convention and we won and they havent gotten over it yet. They are still fighting about it. But it is a ridiculous proposal. And it is really kind of an inspiring tale that a little group of grassrooters could take on the entire establishment and beat them. And i want to tell you we just had everybody against them. We had governors who marched against them on the picket line. We had every the media was hammering as constantly and yet we were able to make our case. We were able to stick to the facts. Argue how the e. R. A. Was going to hurt women and we were ultimately successful. We were nice to the legislatures. The feminists would they would really talk nasty to them. In fact, in the last few days in illinois, they did things like having a chain gang chaining themselves to the door of our Senate Chamber so senators had to step over them to get into their seats. And one day they went to the slaughterhouse and got plastic vials of pig blood and wrote on the marble floors the names of the people they hated the most. They didnt understand that didnt get them any more votes. Meanwhile, we were doing things like sending the legislators valentines and bringing them homemade bread and being nice to them. And ultimately, ultimately we won. But that was the that was the start of what we now call the proFamily Movement that has played such a big part. Now, after we proclaimed victory in 1978, then you see the next big thing coming up was the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. And it was a lot of us were not sure we could win. You know, we didnt have a vision of victory in the conservative movement those days. We were working for you know, the conservative mindset in those days was we are going to pass out our literature and do our things but were probably not going to win. But anyway, what reagan did was there were not enough people left over from the goldwater voters to elect a president. But he successfully and skillfully combined the fiscal conservatives left over from the Goldwater Campaign, the people who had been brought in to the anticommunist movement who cared about National Defense and the people that bought into the proFamily Movement through stop e. R. A. And the fight for life and he won a great victory in 1980 and 1984. And so you knew those three legs in order to win. You really cant win with only one of them. What reagan proved that that is the key to success and that is what they did. And it was the e. R. A. Fight was a fight well worth taking. It is an inspiring tale of how grassrooters can really take over and beat the whole establishment. And we have now since then been in many other issues. The successful candidates are people who can combine the different legs. You all all the voters dont have to agree on everything but if they can all agree on their candidate, that is great. And each one of those groups saw in Ronald Reagan a way of achieving their goal. And that is why he won. And when candidates now say, we are going to put the social issues or the moral issues in the deep freeze or on the back burner, they are making a terrible mistake because they are kicking away larger blocks of voters who are important to their victory. And so i feel that the proFamily Movement has played a tremendous role and there are so many people who came into the Republican Party through these social and moral issues. And it is just so many other issues they care about. We got into the issue of marriage which is another social issue. And im sure that this part of the conservative movement was very influential in passing about 30 constitutional amendments in support of traditional marriage. And passing the defense of marriage act like congress, a wonderful law that obama is not enforcing. You know, one of the principal duties of the president is to see that the laws are faithfully executed. He is not faithfully executing doma. We have now seen since then been in many other issues. The successful candidates are people who can combine the different legs. In fact he has got his attorney general trying to beat it through getting some Supreme Court judge to there would out. And that has been just one of the many ways he has been violating the constitution. But the people who care about the moral issues are extremely important to the conservative history. And they have to be kept a part of it. Human motivation is very complex. And it is the decline in marriage, marriage rate, that is the chief reason for the inordinate amount of welfare and the enormous numbers of people who are being supported at taxpayer expense. We have now got 47 of the American People who are existing in whole or in part on government. And we dont want to build a nation of dependent people. We want a nation of people who can make their own way. I mean, i grew up during the great depression. We didnt look to government. Government was not any help at all. And now we have got more than 40 programs which funnel cash or benefits to people who are not married. Mostly. They say it is for the children. Well, it is encouraging women to have children without getting married. A terrible mistake. They are going to be poor. You ought to tell them you are going to be poor all of your life if you do that. But they are existing by the government. And so there are all of these social and moral issues that are so important. The welfare part of our budget is the fastestgrowing and the biggest part. It is now even more monday then that money than we are spending on National Defense and obama knows that. That is why they are trying to increase the number of single moms because they all vote for obama or most of them do because that is where they are getting their support. So there are many of these social issues that are so absolutely vital and it is necessary that we have that part of the can agency to vote for president. So do we have some questions . We will be back with a few questions. [applause] we will be back with a few questions. Ok, were back here with mrs. Phyllis schlafly. We are going to have a little bit of discussion and take some questions and answers. Mrs. Schlafly, im told the conservative Movement Began in the 1820s with the sunday mail crisis. That was the birth of the religious right. How do you feel about that . Do you feel it has any significance . Phyllis well, in the 18th and 19th centuries, religion was more prominent in Public Discourse than it was later. And so i dont know if that was specifically a religious movement or if it was just their normal way of talking. But that was the fight over whether they deliver mail on sunday . Thats right. It happened actually twice. Phyllis well, i dont know if you can trace that through to the conservative movement and Barry Goldwater. I dont know if you can really trace it through to that. I thought we were really talking about what might be called the modern conservative movement. But as i pointed out, the American People were conservative, period. They didnt think of themselves as conservative, but they were pretty conservative. I mean, you i read you the democratic platform of 1932, and earlier things that are just sound like ron paul. Prof. Factor now, you really were out there fighting against the feminist movement. And you beat the e. R. A. But arent we all feminist today . Phyllis oh no. Let me tell you when i got out of harvard, i worked for a man whose ambition in life was to reclaim the word liberal. Liberal used to mean somebody was for liberty, and then the left wingers took it over and liberal meant spending more money and more government and so forth. And he wanted to reclaim it. Its a hopeless task. Its just hopeless task. A liberal is a prejorative now. Since michael dukakis, its a bad word. No politician wants to be called a liberal anymore. I think thats the way we should treat feminism. All polls show that the american women do not want to be called feminists. It is not a good word. It is a bad word. And everything they stand for is bad and destructive. And it starts from the point of trying to paint american women as victims and that is just nonsense. American women are the most fortunate people who ever lived on this earth. Prof. Factor let us take a question from one of our cadets. Cadet melon. Talking earlier about the Republican Party before the entrance of the proFamily Movement. You said the gardenvariety republican had very libertarian views. So what role did the proFamily Movement have in kind of overriding that libertarian view within the Republican Party . And what limitations does that have for the future of the Republican Party . I think the profamily people came into the party with the stop e. R. A. Movement and the Prolife Movement. And its not that the Republican Party was antilife or antifamily before that. They just didnt talk about it. They were talking about balancing the budget and cutting back on spending and so forth. And so, i think the proFamily Movement, it played a role on its own and it was extremely helpful and the first place it showed itself was in defeating the equal rights amendment and then the second place in electing Ronald Reagan. But i dont think anybody felt it was contrary to what came before. It just was an addition. What explains specifically the religious interest in politics . Why is there religious interest in politics . Well, at the present time, i think there is an organized, systemic attack on religion by the aclu, other organizations like americans united for separation of church and state, who want to eliminate any mention of religion in general and christianity in particular from any part of our public life. And, in other words, i say they want to treat them like smokers. You can do it in your own room, but you cant do it in public. And if you read history, you know that in the early part of our country, religion and references to god and prayer was all just part of public life. In no way did the First Amendment mean it could stop opening the legislature with a prayer like some supremacist judge did in indiana. Said the Indiana Legislature couldnt open with a prayer that mentioned jesus, but it was ok if they mentioned allah. If we go back to one of our earlier lectures, we talked about tokeville, he seemed to think nothing less than a religious society could sustain a republican form of government. So please think about that. Our next question, cadet selmaska . Miss schlafly, article four of the constitution talks about full faith and credit of other states and privileges and immunity clause. So, you know, if i have a drivers license in pennsylvania, i can drive in South Carolina and be ok. Theyll respect that. Well, my question is, doesnt the defense of marriage act kind of interfere with that part of the constitution . In that other states arent obligated to recognize certain marriages in massachusetts or iowa . Oh, well, i think the language of doma did allow for that, and i think the language of the constitution allows for exceptions, but at any event, when one of our candidates said, well, we have our laws in texas, but what new york does is their own business. That wont do it all, because you cant be married in massachusetts or in new york and not in texas. Because people travel. And that essentially was the mistake in decision of the dred scott case. Some states recognized the slave as property, and other states didnt. And the guy who owned dred scott traveled into a free state. Well, does that mean hes free . And the Supreme Court came down wrong on that, but you in our country, you cant be married in one state and then not be married when you move to texas. And so weve got i think we have to have a National Rule about marriage and doma is a very good rule. It it takes care of the full faith and credit provision of the constitution and it takes care of respecting traditional marriage. Theres a notion of humanism of the trenches, and among conservatives, and it includes protestants, catholics, jews. How can there be a consensus in light of the profound differences between these groups . What unites them . Well, we united them on being against e. R. A. , for one thing. But if you look at the when our country started, most of the states had established churches and they fought hard to defend their established church. But basically the moral code was the same in all of it. I mean, people had beliefs in marriage that were the same, beliefs in honesty and fulfilling your contracts and other aspects of so i think thats what you have to have. You dont you dont really have to have the same religion, but you need to have the same moral code. You cant be like as they have proclaimed in these muslims who have been convicted, well, i just lied. The koran tells me i can lie to achieve our goal. Well, thats not our view. The times square bomber who tried to blow up thousands of people in times square. And he was an educated man with a good job, but he wasnt really skilled in making a bomb, so the bomb didnt go off, which was fortunate. He was tried and convicted and he pled guilty. He said, im guilty under your law, but im not guilty under my law. But he was a naturalized citizen, and the judge said, well when you became a naturalized citizen, you swore to uphold the constitution. He said, i lied. Youre my enemy. Well, thats not our moral code. Whatever your religion is. You said putting away social and moral issues was a mistake, but do we its come up several times, but do we really want the federal government regulating moral and social issues . Because thats all well and good until they disagree with you. Even among christians, different christian sects, theres different beliefs. For instance, lets go with episcopalians, theyre allowing homosexual leadership in their churches. You can leave religion, but you cant with marriage. For the reasons i just said. Cant be married in new york and not married in texas. That just is an impossible situation. And so we dont believe in that. You have the libertarians who think you shouldnt have any laws about marriage, it should be a private matter. Thats i think that is absolutely wrong. We need laws. If a man marries a child, he ought to be arrested, prosecuted, and put in jail. You need a law for that. If a man married a couple of women, he ought to be put in jail. I marriage is really a public event. Its not a private event. You have to have witnesses for a marriage. And the community should has got to set the standards for it. And we need to have laws to punish those who disobey them. Mr. Lacey . This kind of follows up on that. You know, the church might consider gay marriage one way or certain religions might believe in polygamy or such. What how would you actually define the sanctity of marriage . Is that purely something judeochristianity has a monopoly on . Doma does that very well. Doma defines marriage as union of a man and a woman. No problem. Its a wellwritten overwhelmingly passed by congress s congress, signed by bill clinton, and its not tied to christianity. Its tied to our essential moral values in this country, and polygamy has been against the law in this country since the middle of the 19th century. In fact, the very first republican platform, which was adopted in 1856, said we condemn the twin i think its the twin evidences of barbarism, polygamy and slavery. And you couldnt become a state in the union unless you had laws against polygamy. I think its absolutely wrong to admit immigrants who have polygamist wives. Its been against our laws that long. Those laws should be obeyed. Id like to step back for a few minutes and discuss roe v. Wade and the emergence of the religious right. Some people talk about roe v. Wade as causing the religious right to coalesce, but if we look back in 1973, for instance, the Southern Baptist convention endorsed roe v. Wade. Almost every protestant group, denomination, endorsed the decision. Do you think that had a major impact on putting together this cultural conservative community . I think, as ive said, that the catholic bishops jumped in to denounce it right away. And the baptists werent going to join up with the catholic bishops, no matter what they said. And and eventually they realized that the babies being aborted were really babies. And they came in to the movement. But i think what else did you ask . I want to get a feel if you think its roe v. Wade that really got a lot of people to coalesce. I guess from your earlier they didnt coalesce in 1973, but by 1976, they did come together. But in 1962, and 1948 as well, there was a major School Prayer controversy, and there was a Supreme Court decision, engels versus vitali. Some said that was a coalescing movement or that was something the movement coalesced around that decision. Do you think that was a major part of the conservative movement coalescing . Well, it was widely denounced by all kinds of people when day look prayer out of the schools. But, and as we look back, it was the beginning of a long series of decisions that are antireligion, but it was the the antiprayer decisions were condemned by all sorts of people but they didnt coalesce and get ready to fight it. They didnt realize how bad the Supreme Court was going to be. Did i bring a copy of my book the supremacist to show . In talking about writing for plain people, there are a lot of fine books on the court, but hold it up. My book the supremacist is really written for nonlawyers. Anyway, its called the supremacist the tyranny of judges and how to stop it. And that was the start of a long series of antireligion decisions. And theyve gotten so extreme now, the valedictorian cant thank god for success in her studies. They have one, the football coach cant bow his head before the team says a prayer before the game. Its ridiculous decisions like this. Theres nothing in the First Amendment that requires that. Youve been critical of jimmy carter during your talk and other times. But wasnt jimmy carter the first evangelical president . I mean, wasnt 1976 almost a watershed moment for the cultural conservative movement with both jimmy carter and chuck holsen . Jimmy carter did rally the evangelicals. He said he was an evangelical and he rallied them to support him. They elected him. Once elected, he appointed all these judges that ruled against him. You dont consider that a watershed moment with his election . Well, he did he did get a lot of evangelicals interested in politics, yes, thats true. 1976. When was that . 1976. Thats about the time i was bringing some into the e. R. A. Well take some more questions from our cadets. Good afternoon, miss schlafly. At the end of the 19th century theres another large Christian Movement with good intentions, of course. To help out. Now you can see that that that movement with good intentions has led to the current welfare system that were in. Do you have any fears that some of the Prolife Movements that we have right now could in another 100 years turn into a very authoritarian state as far as telling people what they can do inside their house all by themselves and really pushing the religion onto the individual within the household . No, i think obama care is a bigger danger of telling people what to do and what they can do in their own house. I dont see the Prolife Movement as doing that. All they want to do is save unborn babies. I think one of these most recent laws is one of the best laws of all. They have to show the ultrasound to the woman before she has an abortion. Thats just a matter of telling her whats going on. And i dont see the prolifers as doing anything except want us to save babies. Im sorry. State programs . Just the proFamily Movement. Defensive marriage act, a lot of the socially the christian right movement right now. That could that eventually turn into authoritarian turn into . Authoritarian state. No. Not a chance. Not a chance. How the moral majority came about . You were there. Well, yeah. Jerry falwell started that in lynchburg, virginia, and i think he just wanted to join the stop e. R. A. Movement. He talked about you being one of the keys for his starting it. Yeah, uhhuh. How did he do it . What how did he did he call you . He even invited me to talk in his church. He said he didnt believe in ordaining women, but he might ordain me. If he was going to ordain a woman some more questions . Yes, cadet . Miss schlafly, gay marriage is seen as such a real, dangerous threat in our society that we need constitutional amendments to ban it. Yet at the same time, nobodys really you dont really see anyone proposing similar legislation or amendments to ban or outlaw divorc,e which i think has proved a more existential threat to marriage and the american family. Is there an inherent inconsistency there . Well, i i agree with you. I think that Ronald Reagan said signing the easy divorce law in california, which started that trend, was the worst mistake he ever made. And if youve read Michael Reagans book about how he used to sit on the curb of the sidewalk and wait for saturday for his father to come. Its kind of a poignant part of the book. And, but reagan knew that was a mistake. And, of course, it swept across the country after that. With all the country with all the states adopting some easy divorce laws. And, yeah, that is a bigger threat. And i think its also probably a bigger threat than the gay marriage, the way the federal tax laws and spending laws are subsidizing nonmarriage. And ive written rather extensively on that on my website. You can look unp a lot of my columns. But the amount of money, federal taxpayers money, thats being put out to subsidize single moms, and the welfare system that says, well keep the goodies flowing as long as you dont get married and dont get a job and dont save any money is just a disaster. What the welfare system did under Lyndon Johnsons war on poverty was to channel all the money to the women, which completely made the father irrelevant. I mean, i grew up in a world where husbands and fathers supported their family. That was the expected norm. But the Lyndon Johnson welfare system, the money all went to the woman. And the father didnt matter. He wasnt needed. And thats extremely unfortunate and its gotten worse. There are now 70 programs of cash or benefits that are paid, majority, to single moms. And if they get married, they may lose them. And that means the children will be living in poverty. Who is most helpful to you during your organizing days . Who are the people that were most helpful to you . Well, i had i had been active in the i was president for years of the Illinois Federation of republic women, then i was active in the National Federation of republic an women, and my republican women friends were the ones who helped me. It wasnt the bill buckleys and the no, National Review, in ten Years National review never had a single article about the equal rights amendment. Just think about that. I had no help from the conservative movement. In ten years, National Review never had a single article about the equal rights amendment. They were no help at all. I think human events had one. I think there were two newspapers that had one friendly editorial. One was in st. Louis, and one was tampa, florida. So even the so even the main conservatives of that time werent really helping you organize no. That cultural conservative movement . No, they didnt help me at all. Interesting. So it was what i did was not a conservative movement or the Republican Party. Well, the republican president s signed onto e. R. A. , ford and nixon. And as far as the rest of the people, they didnt believe i could win. Nobody believed i could win. You know, this is just phyllis play thing, she cant possibly win. Yet, today that cultural conservative movement that you founded is the base of the Republican Party as we know it. Yeah, thats right. At least its it is an essential base. They have other bases, too, but its an essential part. A president cant win without it. And its interesting that a lot of the National Review and human event types that were taking credit for the fusion they created with the cultural conservative movement which you started. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thats ok. [laughter] i dont care. Next question. Cadet foust . You talked a lot about feminism and single mothers and childbirth. And just along those range of topics. And i was just wondering about, you know, theres quality and then theres true equality. You can have equality under the law, but for instance, for one, a woman cant make a man stay in her life. And also just in the business field when a woman is working and she gives birth, shes missing at least six weeks of work, and thats six weeks without getting paid. Thats six weeks where a man in the same position is working and working toward promotion that shes missing. I mean, should there not be any kind of compensation for that . Or . I mean, if theres no husband in her life, she has no income for six weeks after working is kind of the situation right now. If you take away any kind of governmental help, what are they to do . Well, i dont think its your employers job to pay for your pregnancy. I certainly dont. [inaudible] and well, lifes full of choices. You make choices. And there was a court case just last year. They had some female judge. And basically she said the company was entitled to recognize if some women are not putting in the full 24 7 that were expecting, theyre not going to get paid the same. I dont think its your employers job to make allowance allowances for that. Or to pay for it. Next question. Cadet thomas . Religious and moral considerations are important, obviously important to a lot of voters. Like you said, you cant win the president ial a candidate cant win without them. Just how far is it the governments job to regulate these social and religious concerns or to make such as what . Well, just like marriage or abortion. Just how harsh is the government going is a union of a man and a woman, and thats what the law says. And 31 states have passed constitutional amendments that put that into their law and we have the federal law. I think it is proper for the government to say you cant kill babies. I think its a matter of killing a baby. The governments place and not the community or the church to enforce these no, no. Murder is a crime. Criminal offense that the government should punish. Scientists can dispute these are not yet human beings because theyre not even born. So where do you draw the line on that . You cannot dispute that the unborn baby isnt a baby. Thats why the feminists are so unhappy about the ultrasound. We live in an age of pictures. You see the baby in the ultrasound. You know its alive. Its a fetus, but its not a baby yet. Well, its going its going to grow into a baby. Its not going to grow into a dog or Something Else. And, of course, the laws of every state made abortion illegal prior to roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court overturned the laws of every state. Thats what we call supremacist judges. Im going to put im going to leave a couple of books with you. I guess they got left in the other room. One of them is my book on the courts, which is a very easy read about the stream of cases in the various issues of religion, feminism, immigration, property rights, and so forth. And the other one ill leave is my book feminist fantasies, which is about 100 of my essays on feminism which you cant find anywhere else because they originally came out of a Phyllis Schlafly report, including the first one that started the whole fight, and thats kind of the only source of it. So ill leave those books for your library. Your library may not have it. Also, the biography of me phyllis vchlafly and grassroots conservatism. Most of the other books youve read about the conservative movement have been philosophical type books. But this book about me, by a history professor, is about the grassroots part of it. There wouldnt have been a Movement Without the grassroots part of it. You won the grassroots war against the e. R. A. , but hasnt our Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the United States, for all intents and purposes, actually passed e. R. A. They obviously didnt pass it, but theyve actually done the equivalent of passing e. R. A. With a number of decisions. Theyve done a lot, but i dont think the answer to your question is yes. I think the answer to your question is no. Because the e. R. A. Could have done so many other bad things. But they have done a lot of things, but we already had equal pay laws and they got a whole government bureau, equal Employment Opportunity act, trying to enforce equal treatment of women in the workforce. So i dont know what more you could want. Congress did that. The Supreme Court hasnt gotten into the divorce question, i dont think. We have a couple of other questions. Did you have your hand up . I have a question about gender roles when it came to the family. Do you see those as going away with more men staying home . And helping around the family and women going out to be red winners . What are the consequences . Ms. Schlafly it is a very limited number. Generally i say, the girls will ask, why cant she be the breadwinner . Say, you dont have to get my permission, youve just got to find some guy that runs to go along with your ideas. My observation is that most of them dont like that. Think it is ai better plan to have the husband as the provider and protector. I think men ought to protect women. Which you need to understand that the feminist movement, dating from 1963, wanted to get all wives out of the home. And into the workforce. They wanted to destroy the role of a fulltime homemaker. That is very open and shut. That is exactly what they wanted to do. And you ask yourself, why did they want to do that . If they wanted to go into the bekforce, why wouldnt they glad a lot of other women are staying home . That is not the way they look at it. This is the way they look at it. They go in the workforce and they are in competition for some pretty high place job, law partner or executive or ceo or something, and they are in competition with the man. Asset that shean doesnt have. He has a fulltime homemaker, which is a wonderful asset to a man. She has denny ready for him when he gets home, she is taking care of his children. And the woman in the workforce is insanely jealous of that and she wants to abolish she cant have a wife of her own, so she wants to abolish the wife of a man because that is such an asset to a man. That is why they hate fulltime homemaker. Washington university gave me their highest honor in Honorary Degree a couple of years ago. The feminists had protests and carried on. They tried to get it stopped. What was the reason they hated me . Bdra . The not really. It was because i stood up for the role of the fulltime homemaker. They see her as a terrible threat to the woman in the workforce because it is giving an asset to the man. I would suggest you guys, youve got to find out if your girlfriend is a feminist. Before you go to too far with it. Thats right. Some of them are pretty. [laughter] ms. Schlafly the way to find out is to ask her how she feels about Phyllis Schlafly. Then you will know whether she is a feminist or not. About theat length contempt about the partnership you have created with the various denominations. And then that partnership grew into a partnership with the libertarians, as well as with some of what we call neoconservatives today. How has that partnership changed doesow does it how todays partnership compared to that when you talk about which occurred during the election of Ronald Reagan . Ms. Schlafly the election of Ronald Reagan there were clearly three identifiable groups. There was the left people voted for eric goldwater, which is not enough to elect the pleasure a president. Then there were the people in the anticommunist movement, many brought in by Fred Schwartz. And who believed in National Defense, believed in military superiority. Then you had the people who were against e. R. A. And abortion and who cared about these social issues that we had brought into the movement. There is three different kinds of people. They all saw and Ronald Reagan the solution to what they wanted. It is not a case of them agreeing with each other. It is a case of agreeing that Ronald Reagan is the guy who can give us what we want. How is that partnership today . Is it stronger, weaker, more diverse . How do you see it today, how is it different, if at all . The socalled Establishment Republicans are nervous when ledges people are around. They just dont know what to make of it. I dont understand it. That is why you have some of them saying, oh, we got to put social issues on the back burner or weve got to put them aside and not talk about them. It is a great steak not to talk about them, because it does bring people. If you look at the polls, prolife is not at the top of most peoples list that they care about, but if you look at the people who are in favor of about let care me put it this way, the people who care about that issue, the majority are prolife. It is a good issue to talk about. Who werehe republicans elected in 2010 are prolife, including all of the women. I think you had your hand up, cadet . [inaudible] im so sorry. Is a learned that faith crucial component in politics. While many religious groups make up the profamily move it and are focused on the moral values of candidates, what an atheist candidate of equal morals have an opportunity to be a candidate for the proFamily Movement . Ms. Schlafly he has every opportunity to file and be a candidate, but i can think of this character in california that is trying to get god out of the pledge of allegiance. Newdow. E wants to get under god under the pledge of allegiance out of the pledge of allegiance. When they were arguing the one in front of the Supreme Court, this question came up that you asked about an atheist. He just said, well, there arent any atheists elected. And that is about the truth. You will have a hard time getting elected. The conservative movement cannot support an atheist . Ms. Schlafly i didnt say that, but i think an atheist have a hard time getting elected if he proclaims that. The irand objectivist ayn rand objectivist would have a hard time . And would not get that movement evenl lacking backing, though strong morals, free markets coming out of the strong libertarian side, cultural conservatives would probably defect . Ms. Schlafly the libertarians and ayn rand people have notions that are not compatible with real conservatism. One of the things i have learned is that the great lie of american electoral politics is that most elections are affected by this group in the middle. They are not. They are affected by committed people going to the polls because they are committed. If you lose those committed people, you lose elections. It is not that small group in the middle that brings you over the top. It is the committed people going out in high numbers. Have time for one more question. Yes, mr. Lacey . The victoriesed cultural conservatives have had at the polls, but there is that aspect of socialization in our culture, families that go to church, the media doesnt, schools does it. Do you think although conservatives have been successful at the ballot boxes that they are losing the battle when it comes to socialization . Like the professor mentioned that the beginning . At the beginning . Ms. Schlafly when it comes to political socialization . Am worried about the general state of the culture, yes. We have lost a lot of that. We have lost a lot of people in that. Is marriages, well, you look at the figures on how eric has declined and the kind of people who think it is ok to do without. Marriage, i think that is extremely important. A happy marriage is the best thing you can hope for for a happy life. It is wonderful. People that it really doesnt matter whether you get married or not, i think, is a terrible thing, but you look at the figures, we had a 41 illegitimacy rate in this country last year. Of course, the feminists have promoted the idea that kids dont need fathers. The family courts have almost adopted that too. Is fathers, i think, are necessary. Do worry about the deterioration of morals in the whole culture. I dont think it is making people happier or making a better country. Is, well, the feminist completely control the Obama Administration and pretty well dominate the media. To watch that, and they have so many bad ideas. I see cadet slaters hand. We are going to take one more question before we wrap up. That if youto me had the same moral tradition, the same values, the same emphasis on marriage, even if they were agnostic or atheist, being not, the difference , with a not be able to be a part of the conservative movement . The Family Movement . Would they have the chance of being elected . Ms. Schlafly the conservative movement is not a club you have to sign in and wear a special hat or something. It isnt that way. You can vote for anybody you want to vote for. If you convince the voters you are a good guy, a likable guy, why, you can go ahead and elected. And get elected. Im sure there are atheist in congress. There are a couple of muslims, arent there . I let the voters decide. But you dont think that is an easy one . Ms. Schlafly no, i dont think it is easy. No i dont. Him, are you going to say the pledge of allegiance or will you stand to pledge of allegiance, you say under god . Organized specific, antireligious, antiChristian Movement in this country. And we need to defend ourselves against it. Aclu and led by the americans united for separation of church and state. They have coopt a lot of judges, they shop around to find a judge who will decide in their favor. They also look upon it as a fundraiser, because they win the case and they are able to collect their lawyers fees on it. So, it is a big issue. You who are interested in the court decisions, as i say, i will leave my book for your library. I cant let you leave without asking one final question. That is, it is the future of cultural conservatives and religious conservatives and the gop, from your point of view . Where do you see cultural conservatives and religious conservatism going and how was the gop part of that . Ms. Schlafly it is part of the gop and they are not going to kick them out of the gop. It is a major part of the gop. Is cultural conservatism getting stronger . In america . Well, politically it is doing pretty well. [laughter] on the college campuses, i dont know how it is doing. [laughter] but across the nation, growing . Ms. Schlafly you look at the growth in illegitimacy, i think it is a national disaster. We had 41 of the babies born in this country last year born without a father. I just think that is a disaster. As one of these writer on social things said, illegitimacy is the problem. In fact, it is the only problem because it causes so much government spending. It causes so many other problems. Ills come outcial of motherheaded households. You go through it. Crime, sex or drugs or so forth. They all come out of motherheaded households. Not all, most of it. It is just a disaster. Girlll need to find a shares your views and find that out before you get married. And she will help you decide on that girl, too. Fela schlafly, thank you so much for being with us today. It has been an honor and pleasure. Ms. Schlafly thank you. [applause] lectures in history on the go by streaming our podcast anywhere, anytime. You are watching American History tv, holding on cspan3. Cspan cities tour travels the country, exploring the american story. Since 2011 we have been to more than 200 communities. Like many americans, our staff is staying close to home due to the coronavirus. Next, a look at one of our citys tour visits. His name was william c. Velasquez, but everyone knew him as willie. Willie was and is a name synonymous with democracy in america. Through the organization he founded, the southwest Voter Registration education project, he nearly doubled hispanic Voter Registration and dramatically increased the number of latino elected officials in this nation