Meet the woman who's 'true north' for conservatives

Phyllis Schlafly is such an important figure to the conservative movement in America that without her, "the war would be over and we would have lost," says Brent Bozell, founder and president of the Media Research Center.

Phyllis Schlafly

Absent the leadership of the woman credited with nearly single-handedly stopping the feminists' agenda in the Equal Rights Amendment, Bozell said, "My guess is the entire thing would have collapsed 30 years ago."

Schlafly turned 90 in August and still is actively fighting for her beliefs. She still gives public speeches, and her latest book, "Who Killed the American Family," was released Sept. 23.

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He noted that Schlafly was "despised by the left when she emerged in the 1960s."

And he said the media "gave aid and comfort to that by projecting her as a threat to modern civilization."

"To my thinking," he explained, "there are two Phyllis Schlaflys. One Phyllis Schlafly is the one who's known publicly as the woman who single-handedly derailed and defeated the entire left in the ERA battle.

"The private behind-the-scenes Phyllis Schlafly is the one who's been 'true north' for the conservative movement, who's been a guiding light for conservative leaders, who has been a force of nature behind the scenes," he said.

Brent Bozell

He said "Brent Bozell's rule" on the value of a person is to imagine a world without that person.

"Imagine a movement without Phyllis. You would not have the bedrock of support and devotion to the traditional family," he said.

Attacked, debased, maligned and vilified: This foundational institution is fighting for its life. Order Phyllis Schlafly's brand new book, "Who Killed the American Family?"

One of her attributes he likes is that she's realistic, he said, never sugar-coating the truth,

In her book, "Who Killed the American Family," she explains how changes in the law, court decisions, education, entertainment, and culture in general have eroded what many consider an essential building block of society.

"The American family was destroyed by a combination of political activists, judges, economic theorists, self-proclaimed experts, and left-wing politicians – with different motives that produced the same result," Schlafly writes in the first chapter.

That’s the short answer and she goes into greater detail on that thesis in the rest of the book. To those familiar with Schlafly's work, it will come as no surprise that she lays much of the blame for the death of the American family on radical feminists.

"That attitude is not compatible with marriage and motherhood, and it does not produce happiness," Schlafly writes.

Another killer of the American family in Schlafly's eyes is no-fault divorce, which she refers to as "unilateral divorce." Women initiate two-thirds of all divorces, according to Schlafly, because they know they will usually get full custody of their children and a steady stream of child-support money from their ex-husbands.

"Wives who had tired of marriage and its obligations discovered that they could divorce with or without any reason, keep the kids and most of their ex-husbands' income, and live a life free from marriage obligations," she wrote.

Schlafly also writes about the tyranny of family courts, which she believes deny countless children access to their fathers through unnecessary restraining orders. She blasts family court judges for overruling the wishes of parents.

"[F]amily courts cling to the idea that a judge can act as a philosopher-king and decide what is in the best interest of a child," she writes. "This cannot be done without punishing parents and others for acts that are not contrary to any laws, rules, regulations, or policies that are written anywhere."

The book also includes is a lengthy discussion on the perverse incentives in the tax code and welfare state that discourage stable families. Schlafly reiterated this point during a recent interview with WND.

"The welfare system is giving handouts to promote women having children without husbands," she said. "If they don't have husbands, they're going to look to Big Brother government, and we don't want Big Brother government to be supporting our families."

Schlafly had some harsh words for the parenting "experts," such as psychiatrists, judges and social workers, who claim to know a child's "best interests" better than the child's parents do.

"It used to be that when a mom had a ten-year-old boy who was 'a bundle of uncontained energy,' the dad would teach him to play football or work on the farm to burn up that energy and make a man out of him. But now our society has convinced this mom to kick out her husband, drug the boy, and let him get fat and lazy," she writes.

Schlafly has been active in the movement since 1946, when she took a research job with the American Enterprise Institute and managed Republican Claude Bakewell’s successful campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1952, as a member of the Illinois delegation to the Republican National Convention, she endorsed conservative icon Robert A. Taft for president.

But it was in 1964, with the publication of her book, "A Choice, Not an Echo," that Schlafly vaulted into the pantheon of national conservative leaders. She has written 21 more books, authored a syndicated weekly newspaper column, founded the conservative interest group Eagle Forum, and published a monthly newsletter.

Attacked, debased, maligned and vilified: This foundational institution is fighting for its life. Order Phyllis Schlafly's brand new book, "Who Killed the American Family?"