The woman who vanquished the Equal Rights Amendment more than a generation ago is now focused on stopping what she considers amnesty for people in the country illegally, who will never vote Republican and often don’t respect America’s founding principles.
Eagle Forum Founder Phyllis Schlafly is also disgusted by the recent spate of federal judges striking down voter-approved laws and state constitutional amendments that define marriage only as the union of one man and one woman. She told Radio America that the American people must “stop this dictatorial attitude of Obama” and the judges “who think they can do anything they want.”
Listen to Radio America’s interview with Phyllis Schlafly below:
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On the issue of immigration, Schlafly compiled the results from a number of recent independent polls on her EagleForum.org website. She said the consistent results are proof positive that making illegal immigrants U.S. citizens will lead to greater advancement of the liberal agenda.
“These millions of foreigners coming in will, of course, take jobs from Americans, for one thing,” Schlafly said. “But they are not going to vote conservative. They’re all going to vote for big government because that’s what they believe in. A lot of these polls show exactly that and they corroborate each other.
“Pew found that 75 percent of Hispanic immigrants and 55 percent of Asian immigrants, who are the two largest groups, want a bigger government providing more services. Now you ask any Republican or conservative if that’s what he wants, he’s going to say no, but only 19 percent of Hispanics and 36 percent of Asians want a smaller government,” she said. “So why is it any surprise that 71 percent of Hispanics and 73 percent of Asians voted for Obama in 2012? It’s no surprise. That’s the way it is.”
In addition to the leftward political bent of most immigrants, Schlafly said the polling data also indicates a troubling lack of respect among them for our Constitution.
“One poll showed that 67 percent, that’s two-thirds, of native-born citizens think our Constitution is a higher legal authority than international law, but only a third of naturalized citizens share that view,” she said. “Naturalized citizens have already taken a solemn oath to renounce all of their connections and allegiance to where they came from. And yet they’re coming in here thinking international law should trump our Constitution. Give me a break!”
Read Phyllis Schlafly’s latest column, “Obama’s war on the 1st Amendment”
The push for comprehensive immigration reform appears to be on hold.
Just days after he and other House GOP leaders unveiled their principles for reform, House Speaker John Boehner recently announced nothing would be moving forward because a large percentage of Republican lawmakers simply don’t trust President Obama to faithfully enforce provisions with which he disagrees.
Schlafly is encouraged by the delay but said opponents are fighting a tough battle against elements in both parties.
“I hope he’ll never bring it up because what is mislabeled reform is actually amnesty, and the lobbyists who are for this type of amnesty are very powerful and very well financed. The Democrats are for it because they know it will create more Democratic Party votes. It’s the big-business Republicans who want the cheap labor,” she said.
National Republican Party leaders see things very differently. In the Republican National Committee’s report on the 2012 elections, the only policy recommendation was passage of comprehensive immigration reform.
In addition to advocating tighter border security, greater e-verify enforcement and a robust guest worker visa program, the party also believes it needs to find a way to connect with the nation’s fastest-growing demographic.
GOP officials say the issue may not be the only thing that matters to Latino voters but until Republicans address it in a substantive way, it will be nearly impossible to start a dialogue on many other issues that might otherwise attract Latinos to the party.
Schlafly isn’t buying it.
“(RNC Chairman Reince) Priebus is part of the establishment and we have another ‘choice not an echo’ fight between the establishment Republicans, who are mostly the big business and the internationalist Republicans, against the grassroots. The grassroots is almost solidly against this amnesty they mislabel reform. It isn’t reform at all.
“It’s amnesty. It’s letting in as many people as possible. And there’s no good argument for it,” Schlafly said.
Even the most liberal advocates of immigration reform insist they are not in favor of amnesty. So what do they mean by “amnesty,” and what does Schlafly mean?
“When I say amnesty, I mean any of these different views that are mislabeled reform. Anything Chuck Schumer is for, we should be against. That’s why we encouraged the House never to go into conference with him, because Schumer would just out-talk anybody else,” she said.
Schlafly is also one of the nation’s leading voices on social conservative issues. She is incensed that federal judges are creating a pattern of overturning voter-approved constitutional amendments defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Since December, judges in Utah, Oklahoma and Virginia have struck down amendments. A judge in Kentucky recently ordered the commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, despite voters explicitly giving the state power to reject them.
Many of the judges are basing their rulings on last June’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on United States v. Windsor, which struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, and found that the federal government must recognize same-sex marriages in states where it is legal. The justices did not address DOMA’s provisions allowing states to set their own definitions of marriage and decide whether they would recognize marriages same-sex marriages performed in other states.
“Judges are thinking they’re trying to be on the right side of history, but they’re not. And I think what they’re doing is not constitutional,” Schlafly said. “The Windsor case that they’re relying on did not uphold same-sex marriage, but they’re all acting like it did and made it the law of the land. It is not the law of the land.
“It was 35 states, I believe, that have voted for marriage to be one man and one woman. They’re ignoring that, and that Utah decision was particularly outrageous and contrary to everything we know is right and just in this country. Several years ago, I wrote my book called ‘The Supremacists’ about how these judges are getting to think they are God Almighty and can do anything they want,” she said.
“What Obama says he going to do anything he wants now, the judges have been doing for years and they label it under the words ‘living Constitution.’ I think the American people have got to stop this dictatorial attitude of Obama, who thinks he can do anything by executive order and the judges who think they can do anything they want by calling it a ‘living Constitution.'”
