Schlafly Slaps Perry, Redefines ‘Middle Class’

It’s fascinating to watch religious-righters fight among themselves over which Republican candidate is extreme enough to support for president in next year’s elections. Today we saw one religious-right leader, Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum, even redefine “middle class” in her attack on Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s proposed flat-ish tax.

Schlafly — who says nice things about Herman Cain and Rick Santorum in the race for the GOP presidential nomination — argues in a column today that Gov. Perry “want(s) to undermine marriage.” She’s angry that his tax plan, which she says has an “anti-family bias,” isn’t hard enough on unmarried parents. And in rejecting the claim by a Perry spokesman that the plan “protects the middle class,” Schlafly even redefines what “middle class” means:

“No; giving that size deduction to unmarried parents, defined as ‘individuals and their dependents,’ means rewarding bad behavior and is, by definition, outside the middle class. Regardless of income, you can’t be middle class without respecting middle-class values, the most important of which is marriage.”

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The Right’s Anti-Education Reflex

It’s troubling that far-right members of the Texas State Board of Education insist on dumbing down education in science, social studies and other public school classes. But it’s hardly surprising. The knee-jerk anti-education reflex that characterizes the far right these days surely exasperates even mainstream conservatives. Eagle Forum’s website today offers another example of that anti-education reflex: a facts-free diatribe by Phyllis Schlafly against efforts to promote college education for young Americans.

Schlafly sneeringly insists such efforts are misguided. She argues, essentially, that many American high school graduates are too dumb and unprepared and will fail to learn much during their “five-year party” in college:

“Many of these kids wind up in low-skill, low-pay jobs such as cashiers, waiters, theater ushers, and postal workers, which can easily be performed by high school graduates.”

In truth, however, a wealth of data shows that educational attainment levels are tied to employment and wages.

Will Students Be Required to Learn This, Too?

One of the many controversial changes the Texas State Board of Education made to proposed social studies curriculum standards this year was requiring that students learn about Phyllis Schlafly’s role in a “conservative resurgence” in the 1980s and 1990s. Schlafly, the head of the far-right group Eagle Forum, rose to political prominence by attacking the women’s rights movement and opposing the Equal Rights Amendment. But will Texas students learn the truth about Schlafly’s extremism and hatefulness or, instead, a whitewashed version of her work and positions?

We wondered about that today when we read what Schlafly had to say about unmarried women at a Republican fundraiser in Michigan last weekend:

“Do you know what the second-biggest demographic group that voted for Obama — obviously the blacks were the biggest demographic group. But do you all know what was the second-biggest? Unmarried women, 70% of unmarried women, voted for Obama, and this is because when you kick your husband out, you’ve got to have big brother government to be your provider.”

Progress Michigan recorded Schlafly’s remarks: