I met Phyllis Schlafly for the first time at one of the Freedom Center's Restoration Weekends. There were many amazing people on and off the list of speakers there, but she still stood out. We have an amazing movement filled with activists and intellectuals, but there are only so many people who can actually make a difference.
And who actually do make a difference.
Phyllis Schlafly was one of them. She was an unapologetic conservative, so different from many who hope still that a modus vivendi can be achieved with the left by being inoffensive. Phyllis Schlafly did not believe in being inoffensive. She had strong, clear beliefs that no one was ever in the dark about. You always knew what Phyllis Schlafly believed.
It was her clear convictions that allowed her to make a difference.
She did not traffic in a vague idealism. Nor was she content to preach to the choir. She confronted the left, clear-eyed, passionate and calm, and that is how we ought to best remember her.
Phyllis Schlafly took on the left and did not flinch. She absorbed their nastiest attacks and their worst insults and stood all the taller for it. And in that she is an example for us all of courage, leadership and activism.
It was her refusal to retreat from the battle, to soft pedal her ideas or to give up and go home, even at her very advanced age, that are the hallmarks of a conservative champion. She will be greatly missed, yet the qualities she possessed are not lost if we make use of them.