a. homemakers
A touchstone issue for evangelical Christians and cultural conservatives in the 1970s was the battle over women's rights. Prompted by the women's movement, Congress in 1972 approved a constitutional amendment ensuring that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." Such an amendment had been considered and rejected fifty years earlier, but in 1972 it sparked little opposition. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) met overwhelming, bipartisan approval in both chambers of Congress and moved to the states for what most observers expected would be speedy ratification. Within the year, thirty of the required thirty-eight state legislatures had ratified.
By 1974, however, the momentum had stalled. Despite the official support of both major parties, a number of state legislatures balked. Leading the public opposition was Phyllis Schlafly, who had organized a campaign called STOP ERA in October 1972 after the amendment had already passed in twenty-two states. Schlafly painted the ERA as an assault on the rights of homemakers. By nullifying the legal differences between husbands and wives, Schlafly and her supporters argued, the amendment would leave married women dependent and unprotected. The ratification process slowed to a crawl in mid-decade, and by 1979, when the seven-year limit established by Congress was set to expire, only thirty-five states had ratified. Though those states represented over three-quarters of the nation's population, their approval was insufficient. Congress voted to extend the deadline by three years, but nothing changed. The ERA was dead.