Monday, January 15, 2007

A quotation of Phyllis Schlafly?

I've run across a statement attributed to Phyllis Schlafly (noted conservative writer and ERA opponent):

"The atomic bomb is a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise God."

I found the statement embedded in the context of moral argumentation, where it was suggested that Schlafly was in effect arguing that the bomb was good because it was given.

More on that in the future--what I'm interested in at the moment is tracking the quotation down to the original.
I got a few hits through Lexis Nexis, but nothing that mentions a source, so I can't examine the context just yet.

A-ha! I actually got better results from Google.

One intrepid author cited the source: Mother Jones magazine, well-known for espousing left-wing views.

Unfortunately, Mother Jones doesn't really get us any closer to the context of the alleged comment. Here's the way they present it (the goofy appearance of the page, if such it is, is the fault of Mother Jones--the page is somewhat garbled when viewed with either Firefox or Internet Explorer):
Phyllis Schlafly, one of the religious rights few female leaders despite its large number of women, led fights against the ERA and a nuclear freeze, once saying, "The atomic bomb is a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise God."
(Mother Jones)
Doesn't that leave you wanting more information?

Another author sourced the quotation to Michael Lienesch's book "Redeeming America."
His book is one of those for which Amazon allows some minimal search capability--a pity that it doesn't encompass the bibliographical material for the work (but understandable since the notes apparently go on for pages and pages).

Lienesch appears to be a reputable scholar, so it is to be expected that he provides a proper citation for the quotation of Schlafly.

I've got a bead on it in a local library. An update should follow within the week.

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