Transgender Movement on the March

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

On Monday the Colorado Supreme Court, by a wide 5-2 margin, ordered a Colorado children’s hospital to resume transgender treatments and surgeries on minors based on state law, even though the decision could force the hospital to lose its federal funding. The Trump Administration has taken strong action against the transgender movement, yet it marches on.

Last December the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal funding from facilities that provide transgender treatment to children, but a Biden-appointed federal judge in Oregon named Mustafa T. Kasubhai blocked that rule. Children’s Hospital Colorado had wisely suspended its program of applying hormonal treatments and puberty blockers to children due to the threatened loss of funding.

A lower court upheld the hospital’s decision against a legal challenge. Children’s hospitals depend heavily on federal funding, including their services under Medicaid, and thus ordering the hospital to continue with transgender treatment would do more harm than good.

The practice of medicine is historically regulated by state law, but since health care providers receive billions of dollars of federal funding, the Trump Administration said it would cut federal funding from facilities that continue to perform harmful procedures aimed at altering a child’s gender. Recently the American Medical Association and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reversed their guidance on such procedures, urging a delay in transgender surgery prior to the age of 19.

Dominated by federal employees, Virginia has become like Colorado and other blue states in pushing the transgender agenda. When a police officer in Norfolk in southern Virginia objected to orders requiring him to use transgender pronouns, he was ordered to leave, stripped of his gun, suspended, and then fired.

Norfolk has historically been conservative, with many military veterans. It is alarming that police officers in Norfolk have been suspended and even fired for objecting to the use of the women’s locker room by a man purporting to be a transgender woman.

State courts in the mostly conservative states of Kansas and Montana are also imposing the transgender ideology on their residents. In Kansas last Friday, a county judge appointed by Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly issued a 117-page injunction against a good Kansas transgender law, which had been passed by the Republican legislature over her veto.

The ACLU brought this lawsuit against the Kansas ban on transgender operations and treatments for children. The county judge blocked the law based on an activist decision by the liberal Kansas Supreme Court, which invented a right of “personal autonomy” to expand abortion there even though those words cannot be found in its 167-year-old state constitution.

Meanwhile, the Montana Supreme Court has rendered multiple Leftist decisions, despite being in a red state that Trump won by 20 points in 2024. On April 14, the 5-2 court held that birth certificates and driver’s licenses must be changed to accommodate transgender demands.

The Montana Supreme Court ruled, based on its state constitution, that state agencies cannot refuse to alter birth certificates and driver’s licenses to accommodate transgender demands. Despite being born male, for example, a resident of the Big Sky Country can now change his birth certificate to state falsely that he was born female instead.

These Kansas and Montana decisions were based on their state constitutions, and the Colorado ruling was based on state law. This reasoning generally shields such decisions from review by the U.S. Supreme Court which, regardless, has avoided review of many important transgender cases that it could have decided.

The 7-2 decision last week by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of abortion pill manufacturers was the result of all three Trump appointees crossing over to the liberal side of the Court, without explanation. Justices Thomas and Alito expressed their dismay at how well-established principles of law were disregarded to allow the continued distribution of the abortion pill without sensible safeguards such as in-person dispensing, and without compliance with a longstanding federal ban on abortion-by-mail.

The entire Democrat Party is lockstep in support of the transgender agenda, due to how Planned Parenthood supplements its revenue by offering transgender treatments. Only a few courts have been willing to defend children against harmful transgender procedures.

The U.S. Supreme Court indicated last year in the Skrmetti case that there is no right to transgender operations and treatments for children under the U.S. Constitution, but this good decision was silent about state constitutions. The Court upheld a law in Tennessee protecting minors against this harm, but this precedent does not protect children against pro-transgender state court decisions based on state law.

Under Skrmetti the federal government can act further to protect children against life-altering procedures and treatments pushed on them by the transgender ideology. In addition to withholding federal funds from facilities that promote transgender treatments, federal regulations could require transparency to the public about which facilities provide these objectionable treatments.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

America must put babies and mothers first

Phyllis Schlafly was right: America must put babies and mothers first
No job is more vital than motherhood
By Anne Schlafly

"Feminism has changed the way women think, and it has changed the way men think, but the trouble is, it hasn't changed the attitudes of babies at all," said my mother, Phyllis Schlafly. I am so fortunate that my mother put babies first. In the 1960s and 1970s, a new ideology was fashionable: that women do not need or want either men or babies. Phyllis Schlafly lived a fulfilling life centered on her husband and children; which was in stark opposition to the idea that single women are happier alone.

I am so happy that she did put babies at the center of the conversation, because, as her child, I was the beneficiary of her putting babies first.

The current birth dearth is not due to lack of government money; it is due to a culture that tells young women to put career first and that men are expendable. Today, 40% of births in the United States are without the benefit of marriage. And marriage is definitely a benefit for the child. Children who are raised with a mother and a father married to each other are the most privileged group in America. These children are more likely to finish school, get employed, earn more money, be happier and healthier, and also to start their own families.

Intact families should be celebrated, not economically punished by bad tax policies. A true choice for mothers is the choice to nurture their own children, not to succumb to the economic and social pressures for them to farm them out to institutional day care. Mothers should never be economically punished for raising their own children.

Babies were always the first priority for Phyllis Schlafly. She especially liked to talk to babies. Whenever she saw a baby or toddler in public, she would immediately engage in an active conversation with the child. Today, digital interactions have replaced much face-to-face communications and our daily spoken word count has diminished. Texting is a poor substitute for talking! Babies need to hear a rich variety of words in order to develop speech, especially the sound and inflection of their own mother’s voice. Institutional day care cannot provide the same vibrant, nurturing chatter that comes from a mother.

Phyllis Schlafly rightly saw that feminist ideology devalued motherhood. She started an award for the Full-time Homemaker of the Year to honor women who prioritize their babies. Phyllis asked: would you rather be in an office instructed by a boss or managing your household from your own kitchen? She rejected the phrase "working mothers" to describe employed women, because, as she said, "all mothers work all the time".

The concept of taxpayer-paid day care for young children reflects a misplaced understanding of who is responsible for their care. Young children want and need their parents, not a nanny state, to look after them. Government welfare programs encourage the disintegration of the family by leading mothers to seek government support rather than support from fathers. Subsidized day care can undermine the family unit by diminishing the provider's role in the home. Americans consider whether it is wise policy to encourage mothers to leave their babies with government employees. What most mothers desire in paid work is to work inside their home or to work a flexible schedule that allows them to prioritize their family.

Americans spent $11B more on Mother's Day than Father's Day: ReportVideo At Eagle Forum, we believe in public and private virtue, meaning taxpayer money should be spent wisely and families should have control over their own households. If Congress truly wanted to help families, it should increase the dependent deduction on income taxes. Those savings would directly benefit families, without routing taxpayer money through a government intermediary.

Here is who loses under taxpayer-paid babysitting:

The child loses because what the child most wants is mother care, not day care. Day care may be expensive, but mother care is priceless.

The mother loses because no one cares more about her child than she does. The day care worker can never be emotionally invested in the welfare of the child.

The day care workers lose because wages are still low. Increasing the supply of day care will not raise workers’ wages.

The taxpayers lose because when the government pays, prices rise (as we have seen in the ever-rising prices of college education and health care). The subsidies will ensure that the day care businesses can raise their prices without losing customers.

Stay-at-home mothers lose as they do not receive any subsidy for choosing to remain at home and raise their own children. They have resisted the social pressure to return to paid employment and place their children in institutional babysitting.

However, there are some winners under taxpayer-paid babysitting:

Day care bureaucrats win because they can expand their business models. As in education, additional government funding often goes to administration rather than workers. Instead of supporting small family-run daycares, the industry will shift toward larger, institutional services.

Politicians win by pretending to give money to the people.

No job is more vital than motherhood. We honor all mothers who choose this important job.

Anne Schlafly is the Chairman of Eagle Forum and the daughter of Phyllis Schlafly.

Another Unforced Error for the Midterms

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

As both political parties scramble for votes ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, even racing to do some last-minute redistricting, someone in the Trump Administration just committed an unforced error that could cost the GOP crucial men’s votes. On May 7, a “spokesperson” announced that the U.S. State Department would begin to revoke the passports of thousands of American citizens subject to child support orders from a family court.

Anyone whose passport is revoked while traveling abroad becomes unable to travel through international airports. The passport is the only official document proving that someone is an American citizen, and a birth certificate alone does not prove citizenship as demonstrated by the ongoing debate over birthright citizenship.

Soldiers and sailors, thousands of whom have child support obligations, could be hard hit by this new policy. While they can travel on official duty with a military ID, their dependents cannot, and thus our servicemembers need active passports to travel with their families.

In 1996, Congress inserted into the massive welfare reform bill a politically correct provision authorizing revocation of passports based on unpaid child support obligations, but administrations of both parties have wisely chosen not to enforce that law because it inflicts far more harm than good.

The State Department said it would initially revoke passports of men whose unpaid child support exceeds $100,000, which is impossible for most to pay, but subsequent revocations could be triggered by a debt of only $2,500. To restore their passports, the debts would have to be paid in full, and attorneys would be needed to clear the judgments in both the state and federal systems, a process that could take many weeks to accomplish.

In the meantime, the American men could be stranded abroad and subject to arrest by a hostile foreign government as unlawful residents. While much-needed deportations of illegal aliens appear to have dried up in the U.S., the State Department’s new policy could turn law-abiding Americans into criminals in foreign countries.

When an American citizen is accused of a crime in a foreign country, even murder, he can show his passport to the American embassy there and obtain support. Even if convicted, neither his American citizenship nor his passport is revoked, and a child support judgment is merely a financial obligation, and not a crime that justifies revoking American citizenship.

Men are the key demographic that Republicans need to attract to have a chance in the upcoming midterm elections, which makes the unexpected announcement of this new policy particularly senseless. It sounds like something Kamala Harris would have done if she were elected president, to pander to her feminist base.

Over 20 years ago the Bush Administration abruptly revoked the passport of the famed chess champion Bobby Fischer for having played a chess match in Yugoslavia, which violated a federal law that had never been enforced like that against anyone else. Fischer was then stranded with an invalid passport at Japan’s Narita airport as he tried to travel to the Philippines, and was detained for 9 months by Japanese immigration authorities.

As an American celebrity, Bobby Fischer was ultimately granted asylum in Iceland, where he had won the world chess championship against Boris Spassky in 1972. But no country is likely to grant asylum to many thousands of American men soon to be affected by this new passport policy.

Despite its misleading name, child support orders are not based on the actual needs of any child, do not have to be spent on a child, and often go to a welfare agency rather than the mom. The more that the father is denied custody and visitation, the higher his child support obligation is, and it can include above-market interest rates and attorney’s fees, non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.

States already have the means to try to enforce child support orders, such as imprisonment or denying occupational licenses or gun permits, but often decline to use such draconian tools because the father simply does not have the money. Moreover, unpaid child support obligations can result from denying the father visitation rights for his own children.

Roughly 70% of divorces are initiated by women, and among college-educated women the percentage is as high as 90%. Large child support obligations result from raising children in a fatherless home.

Revoking passports puts American citizens at risk of harm abroad. Without a passport enabling them to travel, these Americans can then be held and used as bargaining chips for a prisoner swap, as Russia did when it imprisoned a woman basketball player for alleged drug possession.

President Trump’s stated policy is to defend American citizens who are overseas. Putting American citizens at risk of being arrested in foreign countries, and held in foreign prisons, due to an arbitrary revocation of their passports is inconsistent with the goals of MAGA.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Time Is Running Out

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

We’re only six months from the midterm Election Day, and only four months from the start of early voting in September. In between are the slow summer months of June, July and August.

Time is running out for Republicans to hold on to control in Congress. In a half-dozen special congressional elections, voter support for the GOP candidate has declined by 6 to 10 points compared with 2024.

A loss by Republicans of the U.S. Senate, which is considered to be roughly 50% likely, would mean the inability to confirm a conservative nominee to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Every one of the 47 Democrats in the current Senate votes lockstep with liberals on social issues like abortion, and a net gain of 4 seats would give them control over new federal judges.

Up for grabs in November are five Senate seats currently held by Republicans: Democrats are predicted to win Republican-held seats in Maine and North Carolina and have an edge in Ohio and Alaska, while Texas is a toss-up. The Republican candidate for Senate in Ohio is handicapped by the unpopular Vivek Ramaswamy at the top of the ticket for governor.

Gasoline prices have risen to a national average of $4.46 per gallon, and traditionally voters have rejected the party in power when gas is above $4 per gallon. The cost of gas is up 30 cents per gallon in just the last week, so the impact of this on political polling is still to come.

At the state level, twice as many Republican-controlled legislative chambers are at risk of flipping to Democratic control, as vice versa. The legislative chambers most vulnerable to flipping are the Republican-held House and Senate in the swing states of Arizona and Wisconsin, and the House chamber in Michigan, all of which Republicans won in 2024 by promising peace.

Delivering a high-level indictment for the wrongful weaponization of the federal government against Trump could be a watershed moment for MAGA voters. By now MAGA expected indictments of Jack Smith and his ilk, after U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon found that Smith was unlawfully appointed to prosecute Trump.

Trump has tried to deport Haitians and other migrants, but it appears that the promise of mass deportations on which Trump was elected has been shut down by non-MAGA White House advisers. They've also blocked RFK Jr. from picking new members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which sets vaccine policy, or firing the members of the Preventive Services Task Force, which imposed costly health care mandates.

More attention to the needs of young men, who unexpectedly swung to the Republicans in 2024, is long overdue. An initiative to improve fathers’ rights in custody disputes, for example, would send a helpful message to the voters who could re-elect Republicans.

Young women, on the other hand, are the demographic that elected the socialist Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York City, and they are not voting Republican for the foreseeable future. There is a widening gender gap between young men and women, with Democrats consolidating their support from unmarried women while Republicans seem to be kicking away the young men who voted for them in 2024.

According to a recent poll published on Monday by Politico, “Just 58 percent of young Republicans say they’ll vote GOP — with nearly a third selecting ‘neither’ or ‘won’t vote.’” In contrast, 85% of young Democrats – who are mostly women – plan to vote for their party this fall.

Much of this is the result of an economy that is not doing well for Gen Z. College graduates face the toughest job market in a decade, with their unemployment higher than the national average and underemployment at an astronomic 42.5%.

Young men have been pulled into the pandemic of gambling on their cell phones, and a crackdown on the predatory practices of online casinos would be welcomed relief. Sports gambling has corrupted college and professional sports, and prosecuting the few who are caught neither solves the problem nor satisfies anyone.

When asked about the prosecution of an American special forces soldier for profiting from wagers based on inside information about the raid and capture of the Venezuelan dictator Maduro, Trump said “I’m not happy with any of that stuff” and “the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino.”

It would be helpful to see some Teddy Roosevelt-style action against corporate cronyism that is alienating young voters who struggle with low wages, high debt, and housing prices that are out of reach. Trump should take on Big Tech and tap into the groundswell of fury by voters against the monstrous data centers that are popping up all over the country, often overloading the electric and water utilities that Americans rely upon.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

How tradition empowers women

Michael Knowles says in a short new video:

Did Phyllis Schlafly prove that tradition empowers women?

Apr 28, 2026 #PhyllisSchlafly #MichaelKnowles #Tradition

History reveals that women have always played significant roles in their communities and political spheres, long before modern movements took shape. Phyllis Schlafly stands as a prime example of someone who successfully balanced raising a large family with monumental political influence, effectively leading the opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. This perspective argues that recognizing and embracing the unique, inherent strengths of womanhood is the true path to avoiding disadvantage. It challenges the modern narrative by suggesting that tradition and domestic roles are not barriers, but rather complementary to a woman's public and professional potential.

I made my point though, which is that you say throughout history, including long before feminism ever came onto the scene, women did plenty of things, you know, in addition to just being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, right? They had uh they were involved in their community. They had side hustles, as you put it. Um, so so they did all these things. I mean, I think of the most famous anti-feminist American of the 20th century. It was Phyis Schlafley. Phyllis Schlafley had six kids. She was a housewife. She uh said the only person whose permission she needs for her political activism is her husband's which irritated feminists to no end. She's one of the most important political figures of the whole century.

She single-handedly killed the Equal Rights Amendment, traveled all over the country, one of the most vaunted figures in the American right. Uh she she was able to do a lot of things in public, but she recognized that her particular role that her husband never could have, that no man on earth ever could have, even if he kids himself, is to have children, to be a woman, to be graceful, to to do the things that men can't do. And so she can do she can do things beyond that as well. But uh if if you erase the particular advantages of women, then women are are put at a disadvantage.

Is SCOTUS Ducking Transgender School Cases?

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

If anyone feels that the transgender issue has been won by conservatives, think again. In the past eight days the U.S. Supreme Court has ducked not one, but two, important cases in which public schools encouraged students to socially transition to the opposite sex without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

Social transitioning means adopting a name, pronoun, clothing, and gender expression suitable to the opposite sex. Many public schools have a policy of reinforcing such behavior by students and concealing it from their parents.

The latest denial of cert by SCOTUS was on Monday, on a petition by parents which had been supported by many amicus briefs. Nearly half the states joined a brief in support of parents to be informed and have control over what public schools are doing to push their children toward transgender behavior.

In just the last two years, the Supreme Court has turned away five transgender cases in which parents object to the secret transitioning of their children in public schools. This latest denial by SCOTUS arose from a lawsuit initiated by Florida parents, in which the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit sided with the public school despite the swing vote on the three-judge panel describing the school’s treatment of the parents as “shameful.”

In that case, a 13-year-old girl had delays in development and struggled with learning, and began doubting her gender. Her parents hired a private therapist and informed the school that they were opposed to social transitioning.

But even in Republican Florida, school officials were allowed to meet secretly with the child, label her as “nonbinary,” mandate that all school personnel refer to her as “they” or “them,” allow her to use boys’ bathrooms, and prohibit anyone from informing her parents. The school rejected the parents’ objections, denied their request to participate in this process, and refused the parents’ request for school records of meetings with their own daughter.

The school was acting pursuant to a parental-exclusion policy, which the Eleventh Circuit held was “executive” conduct that parents could not prevail against. In an opinion that the swing judge sided with but said “makes no sense,” the Court held that parents must first prove that an infringement on their rights “shocked the conscience” to compel a school to comply with the parents’ request.

A week earlier, the Supreme Court likewise refused a petition by two Massachusetts parents who had “repeatedly directed their public middle school not to interfere with the upbringing and mental healthcare plan for B.F., their eleven-year-old daughter.” Despite the parents’ objections, “school officials followed district protocol and secretly facilitated B.F.’s social gender transition anyway” and treated her “as though she were nonbinary.”

The entirely Democrat-appointed First Circuit panel sided with the public school by holding that an 11-year-old’s desires had priority over parental rights, and that this transgender issue supposedly did not concern her mental health. The public school even provided counseling to facilitate the gender transition of the child despite the parents’ objections, and the First Circuit sided with the school.

With these two latest denials of cert, the Supreme Court has now denied petitions for its review from anti-parent decisions by the First, Fourth, Seventh, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits. In each case, often over dissent by a conservative appellate judge, the federal judiciary sided with schools as they secretly transition children without the knowledge or even over the objection of the parents.

Washington, D.C., is the transgender capital of the world and the Supreme Court justices and their clerks are immersed in that culture. The percentage of law students who are transgender also continues to climb, who become law clerks at the Supreme Court to do most of the work in screening cases for review.

The Supreme Court did intervene in an emergency appeal from a case in California, to reinstate a district court injunction against a California law that prevented public schools from notifying parents about their child’s gender identity or sexual orientation. Captioned Mirabelli v. Bonta, this case continues to be litigated in federal court in California and does not directly affect the rest of the country.

This case is based on a “religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs,” the 6-3 Supreme Court wrote in temporarily siding with the parents. California’s opening brief is due on July 6 in the left-leaning Ninth Circuit, which has previously held against parents.

It was this same Ninth Circuit that infamously declared two decades ago that a parent’s right over her child’s upbringing “does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door.” Phyllis Schlafly then led such an uproar against that arrogant denial of parental rights that the court extraordinarily amended its decision to reword its much-criticized statement. SCOTUS then denied cert in that case, too.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Is Political Feminism Finished?

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Political feminism is the push to elect women to high office, such as the U.S. Senate and the Presidency. Two out of the last three Democrat nominees for president have been women, and their campaigns ended in crushing failures.

In Maine, the very formidable two-term Governor Janet Mills appeared to be a shoo-in for the Democrat nomination to run against the incumbent Republican Susan Collins. Kamala Harris won this deep-blue state by 7 points in 2024, and traditionally that margin increases in the midterm elections in favor of the party not in control of the White House.

Mills faced off against Trump himself at an event held for governors at the White House early last year, when Trump called out Maine on the transgender issue. Mills told Trump that she would see him in court, to the thrill of liberals nationwide.

EMILYs List, the preeminent group supporting feminist candidates, praised Mills as “the first woman to be elected as a district attorney in New England,” and the only female attorney general and governor in Maine history. She won her last election in 2022 by 13 points, which was the largest margin for a statewide Democrat there since 1988.

Her opponent is a political newbie named Graham Platner, who is an oyster farmer with a checkered past that includes a Nazi-linked tattoo and posts unsympathetic to women on Reddit. EMILYs List says that “Graham Platner’s comments blaming victims of sexual assault are unacceptable and disqualifying.”

But Platner is a progressive endorsed by Bernie Sanders, the senator for nearby Vermont. Progressives seem to be taking control of the Democrat Party away from liberal feminists.

The latest polling shows Platner with a phenomenal 33-point lead over Mills. Platner is so far ahead for the June 9th primary that he is starting to steer his campaign ads to target his November opponent, Susan Collins, rather than focus on Mills.

Meanwhile, after just a few months on the job the approval rating of Virginia’s new Democrat Governor, Abigail Spanberger, has plummeted below 50%. The pollster State Navigate observes that she is the “most historically unpopular governor at this point in the most recent Virginia governors’ terms.”

The feminist wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, is not helping his presidential ambitions. She insists on being called “First Partner" rather than the traditional title of “First Lady,” in order to push the DEI mindset.

She’s accused some Christians of “living in this silo, this evangelical, conservative silo that, ultimately, is just pulling us back as a country to a time and a place where we don't deserve to be, and we’re not going to be.” Her husband tried to shut churches down in California during Covid, while allowing some businesses to remain open, and the Supreme Court ruled against that.

Jennifer Newsom added, “young women and fathers of daughters are awake now, and they’re woke, and they’re not going to let us go back.” Gavin Newsom and his woke wife are struggling in early polling among contenders for the 2028 Democrat presidential nomination, trailing behind Kamala Harris who lost last time.

Meanwhile, there is backlash by young men against feminists in South Korea, where birth rates have plummeted to the lowest in the world, thereby endangering the long-term survival of the country. A survey last year found that roughly 50% of men in their 20s and 30s agreed with the statement that “There needs to be a movement that honors masculinity and advocates for men’s rights.”

Over the last half-century feminists have passed many laws that continue to cause harm today. These include programs that profit from turning women against men, and family court procedures that deprive men of their rights of fatherhood.

In 2015 the Obama Administration fully placed women in combat roles in our military. Our ground troops and warships, which are now in harm’s way near Iran, are coed with women and men.

Phyllis Schlafly warned 50 years ago that ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment would result in court-ordered taxpayer-funded abortions, and she successfully blocked that terrible idea from ever becoming part of the U.S. Constitution. Feminists pretended that Phyllis did not know what she was talking about, but time has proven her correct.

On Monday, a 4-3 decision by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ordered taxpayers of our fifth-largest state to start funding abortions there, based on its state ERA. The court used the same contorted logic that Phyllis predicted would be used by feminists to force the public, against the conscience of many, to pay for abortions.

As a state court decision grounded in state law, the U.S. Supreme Court cannot overturn this on appeal. Advocates for ERA back in the 1970s insisted this would not happen, and yet it just did.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

The Bible Belongs in Public School Readings

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A strong education includes reading from the greatest works of all time. A full understanding of history requires knowledge of the books that influenced leaders, thinkers, and decision-makers.

The Texas State Board of Education has released its tentative 53-page list of about 300 literary works that will be part of the public school curriculum for grades K through 12. Many familiar classics are on this list, including Charlotte’s Web, Animal Farm, and the humorous story by Mark Twain about the amazing jumping frog, which are for students prior to high school.

This list results from the enactment of HB1605 back in 2023, and will not take effect until 2030. A full seven years from the passage of this reform to its implementation is appalling.

The biblical excerpts on this reading list, which is not yet final, include the Golden Rule (which is not solely from the Bible), the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and the Road to Damascus, for Kindergarten through 3rd grade. Then there is a gap until 7th grade, when recommended readings include the Book of Psalms and the tale of Jonah and the Whale.

For high school, Bible readings are passages from David and Goliath, Lamentations, the Tower of Babel, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Job. The Board should be criticized for recommending almost nothing from the New Testament.

The loudest protests are from those who oppose including anything at all from the Bible in public school reading lists. The Bible is the most influential and widely read book ever, and continues to rank first in readership annually.

The Bible should be listed #1 in every bestseller list, but it is kept off those lists because it wins every time. People are misled by weekly bestseller lists omitting the Bible at the top, which is the hottest seller now and has been ever since the invention of the printing press more than 500 years ago.

Sales of the Bible have been increasing, too, soaring to high levels with Gen Z who are even more interested in the Bible than older generations have been. In 2025, Bible sales reached new record highs in the U.S. and U.K., as U.S. sales totaled over 19 million copies, double the number sold in 2019.

In light of this, it is straightforward to include passages from the Bible on any list of required readings for public schools. Stories like the parable of the Prodigal Son, which is unique to the Bible and cannot be found in any prior works, are often cited and every educated person should be familiar with them.

There are threats of lawsuits to block the inclusion of any part of the Bible in a public school curriculum. Any such lawsuits will fail.

The Bible has been incorporated into great speeches like President Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech, where he used that Gospel metaphor to argue against slavery. Many of the greatest scientists of all time, such as Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur, were avid readers of the Bible.

No one is forced to believe in the Bible or in any other reading assigned in school. Works by Leftists, such as Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, are routinely assigned to high school students and they are expected to understand, analyze, and repeat the themes of these controversial writings.

Unfortunately, too much liberal propaganda remains on this list for high school students, during their formative years. The Texas Board recommends Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, which uses the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 as an allegory for the congressional investigations of communism in the 1950s, after which Miller himself was held in contempt (later reversed) for refusing to identify the communists he knew.

Books that promote the LGBTQIA+ agenda are commonly assigned to students today, and are more controversial to most parents than anything in the Bible. The books preferred by liberals and atheists are also far less influential or quoted than the Bible is, and thus less likely to prepare a student to become a knowledgeable adult.

A significant segment of our society quotes from the Bible or cites biblical figures frequently, and students should receive an education that enables them to understand these references. When someone hears a suggestion that he “turn the other cheek,” he should have been educated to understand immediately what that biblical expression means.

The Texas State Board of Education expressly states that students can opt out of any Bible reading based on religious or moral beliefs. It seems that Democrats are not really concerned about the rights of a few families who will be free to opt out, but instead are protesting that students whose parents want them to read from the Bible will be allowed to do so as part of public school curricula.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Wanted: An Unconfirmable Attorney General

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

With the sudden departure of Pam Bondi last week, President Trump is searching for a new Attorney General. He may be looking for a new Deputy AG as well.

Under current Federal law, President Trump has the power to appoint an attorney to fill these crucial offices in an interim or “acting” capacity for up to 210 days without Senate confirmation.

A glance at the calendar reveals that this year’s midterm elections are set for November 3, 2026, which is exactly 210 days from today. Coincidence? We think not.

The next Attorney General and Deputy AG should be someone who is willing and able to accomplish the MAGA goals within that 210-day time frame, or he’ll be another failure. These 210 days (30 weeks) could be virtually all the time that remains on the clock for the second Trump administration.

No one passes a basketball to a player who ignores dwindling time on a shot clock. No coach installs a quarterback after the final two-minute warning who ignores the game clock.

The liberal media and even some of Trump’s advisers are telling him that he needs to choose a new Attorney General who is confirmable by the Senate, but that is malarkey. Trump needs an Attorney General who will get the job done before the midterms, such as someone who could not be confirmed by the weak sisters in the Senate.

Before a nominee could even be voted on by the full Senate, he would have to pass the gauntlet of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Republicans hold a 1-vote margin that several of Trump’s best nominees have failed to clear. The RINO lame duck Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) is on that committee, and he should not be allowed to block a strong nominee.

Certain types of attorneys should be ruled out of consideration immediately. The next Attorney General should not come from a major Establishment law firm, should not be a former lobbyist or lobbyist wannabe, and should not be a former federal prosecutor.

If the next Attorney General is afraid of liberals, Congress, or the media, then he will fail to make badly needed changes at the Justice Department. MAGA still awaits a prosecution of ringleaders among more than 200 Justice Department employees who wrongfully persecuted Trump.

Many excellent candidates would do a terrific job at saving our country from the Swamp. Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Ed Martin, Mike Davis, and Sidney Powell would be superb choices without worrying about Tillis and other RINOs.

President Abraham Lincoln did not win the Civil War by appointing an insider to lead the Union Army. After D.C.-favored generals like George McClellan failed to get the job done, it was the outcast, probably unconfirmable U.S. Grant who ultimately won the war.

Even if eventual confirmation could be assured, we don’t have time to waste on a long and agonizing confirmation process, with the clock winding down for the midterms. The next Attorney General should not subject himself to browbeating by liberals, as when Markwayne Mullin had to make a damaging retreat from Trump’s deportation agenda before he could be confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security (which includes ICE).

The ideal candidate would be someone who views D.C. and the liberal media with contempt, as Trump does. Anyone who seeks praise on Capitol Hill or by the press should not apply for this job that requires wrestling with Swamp creatures.

If the next Attorney General cannot get the job done for MAGA in 210 days, then he should not be appointed. Coaches do not give the ball to players who ignore the game clock as it winds down to zero.

There is probably no confirmable candidate for the top two positions in the Justice Department who will fulfill the MAGA goals that Trump promised in 2024. If a majority of the senators approve of a candidate, then he is unacceptable to MAGA.

In 2020, the Senate-approved Attorney General Bill Barr abruptly quit his office early to avoid post-election issues, and then obtained a book deal for his memoir entitled “One Damn Thing After Another.” That failure would probably happen again if Trump picks a confirmable candidate to lead the DOJ.

Nearly everyone liked by senators in D.C. is angling to make a buck for himself, as many senators themselves are, too. Several have left the Senate to cash in with private equity firms, while others take lucrative corporate jobs as Barr did after being Attorney General under President George H.W. Bush.

Installing MAGA leadership at DOJ was one of the key pledges made to the American people in 2024, which helped elect Trump and other Republicans. The vacancy at the position of Attorney General makes it possible now to honor that pledge.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Conversion Therapy Wins Big in SCOTUS

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Do physicians and counselors have the right to speak freely to their patients and clients? One would think that licensed professionals enjoy the First Amendment as much as anyone else, but 23 Democrat-controlled states and the District of Columbia have passed laws making it illegal for counselors to help young people go straight, in the face of confusions about sexual orientation or gender identity.

These state laws ban what is known as “conversion therapy,” a scary term that Wikipedia falsely contends is a form of child abuse. More than 100 cities and counties have also banned conversion therapy for minors, despite how local ordinances are not typically so political.

But today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all such laws are almost certainly invalid, because the First Amendment protects the right of professional counselors to give advice without viewpoint discrimination, even on controversial topics like sexual orientation.

In his ringing opinion in favor of the Colorado Christian counselor who brought the case, Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote: “The Constitution does not protect the right of some to speak freely; it protects the right of all. It safeguards not only popular ideas; it secures, even and especially, the right to voice dissenting views.”

It is not surprising that Gorsuch was assigned to write this decision, as he is from Colorado and presided on the Tenth Circuit in Denver before going to the Supreme Court. But the strength of his opinion is refreshing, particularly given how he had declined to support granting certiorari in similar prior appeals.

Kaley Chiles, the licensed mental health counselor who challenged Colorado’s ban on so-called conversion therapy, is indeed a committed Christian, but six Justices ruled in her favor in a strong endorsement of freedom of speech regardless of religion. By a 6-3 margin the Court held that “every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth.”

Concurring with the Republican majority, Obama-appointed Justice Elena Kagan agreed that “because the State has suppressed one side of a debate, while aiding the other, the constitutional issue is straightforward.”

The single dissenting opinion was authored by Biden-appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson who, during her memorable confirmation hearing, was unable to say what a woman is. In her overwrought, cliche-ridden opinion, Justice Jackson said “the majority plays with fire in this case,” “opens a dangerous can of worms” and “we could now be standing on the edge of a precipitous drop in the quality of healthcare services in America.”

In his response to Jackson’s heated dissent, Justice Gorsuch wrote that Justice Jackson “may believe that state-imposed orthodoxies in speech pose few dangers and many benefits in this field (and who knows what others). But their policy is not the First Amendment’s.”

Although the speech ban at issue in this case attracted only one vote on the Supreme Court, it is frightening that such an onerous restriction on free speech has been passed by legislatures of nearly half our states. The gist of those state laws, which Joe Biden’s appointee to the Court would have upheld, is that doctors and other licensed professionals have no right to give their own best advice, but must convey state-approved messages to their clients or patients.

The lobbyists for those laws argue that conversion therapy has a low success rate. However there is no evidence that the rate is any worse than for other common therapies, such as for losing weight or stopping addictions.

The decision in favor of free speech is now the law of the land in the United States, but the battle is not over, because many professional societies still oppose the use of talk therapy or counseling to guide young people struggling with issues of sexual orientation or gender identity. You can expect professional counselors like Kaley Chiles to be harassed by some state licensing boards if they dare to fully exercise their free speech.

Colorado, which has become one of the most liberal states despite formerly being conservative, may not give up in its attempt to censor conversion therapy. Justice Kagan invited it and other opponents of conversion therapy to try again with a content-based restriction, rather than a viewpoint-based limitation, although it is far from clear what Justice Kagan has in mind.

A viewpoint-neutral limitation on counseling would require liberals to cut back on their grooming campaigns. Most conversion therapy bans, including Colorado’s, allow therapy to encourage transitioning to become transgendered.

Speech bans similar to Colorado’s are still the law in countries that don’t have a First Amendment, such as Canada. Originally drafted in the 1980s to ban counseling about sexual orientation, most of these laws were subsequently expanded to ban counseling about gender identity, too.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.