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in its tracks [the Equal Rights Amendment]; and had a beautiful accomplished family— any man like that would have a place in the current administration.. . . I would accept correction if this is wrong; and she mayyet be appointed. She was widely reported to have wanted such a post,

but I don’t believe everything I read, especially about women. I do think

she should have wanted one and they should have found her a place she

wanted. She certainly deserved a place in the Defense Department. Phyllis

Schlafly is a qualified woman. ” Answered Schlafly: “This has been an

interesting debate. More interesting than I thought it was going to be.. . .

I think my opponent did have one good point— [audience laughter] Well,

she had a couple of good points.. . . She did have a good point about the

Reagan administration, but it is the Reagan administration’s loss that they

didn’t ask me to [drowned out by audience applause] but it isn’t my loss. ”

devotion in women who are afraid that they w ill be deprived of the

form, shelter, safety, rules, and love that the Right promises and

on which they believe survival depends.

*

At the National Women’s Conference (Houston, Texas, November

1977), I spoke with many women on the Right. The conversations

were ludicrous, terrifying, bizarre, instructive, and, as other feminists have reported, sometimes strangely moving.

Right-wing women fear lesbians. A liberal black delegate from

Texas told me that local white women had tried to convince her

that lesbians at the conference would assault her, call her dirty

names, and were personally filthy. She told me that she would vote

against the sexual-preference resolution* because otherwise she

would not be able to return home. But she also said that she would

tell the white women that the lesbians had been polite and clean.

She said that she knew it was wrong to deprive anyone of a job and

had had no idea before coming to Houston that lesbian mothers

lost their children. T his, she felt, was genuinely terrible. I asked

her if she thought a time would come when she would have to

stand up for lesbian rights in her hometown. She nodded yes

gravely, then explained with careful, evocative emphasis that the

next-closest town to where she lived was 160 miles away. The history of blacks in the South was palpable.

* “Congress, State, and local legislatures should enact legislation to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sexual and affectional preference inareas including, but not limited to, employment, housing, public accommodations, credit, public facilities, government funding, and the military.

“State legislatures should reform their penal codes or repeal State laws

that restrict private sexual behavior between consenting adults.