"The Triumvirate of the Women's Rights Movement"

One of them is the architect of the campaign of non-violent civil disobedience for the vote. Matilda Joslyn Gage argued that women already had the right to vote in a Republic, that unique governmental form based on the consent of the governed. Consent was given by the ballot, so women as citizens had the right to vote. Women voted by the hundreds around the country, saying the lawbreaker was not them, but the federal government which failed to protect their right to vote against the states which wouldn't let them.

And they refused to pay their taxes. Women were taxed and not represented. No taxation without representation rang as true in 1876 as it had in 1776. Gage co-authored the Declaration of Rights of Women with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She presented it illegally with Susan B. Anthony. The three women – Gage, Stanton and Anthony – were the triumvirate of the woman's rights movement. Impossible, you say, I've never heard of her. You're right. You haven't heard of her. And because of that, you are missing a major historic peg.

"Getting Them the Vote"

The other woman, Francis Willard, received a visitation from God during that same year of 1876. He told her she had to work to get women the right to vote in order to put Him in the constitution. Stanton, who always had the best lines, quipped: "If the Constitution can't recognize women, whom it has seen, how can it be expected to recognize God, whom it has not seen?" Willard became the head of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union – an organized army of Mother Love for God, Home and Country.

Building on the ravages alcohol had wrought on the American family, the WCTU sought to take away the right of anybody to drink any alcohol. But deeper than that, they were part of the Prohibition Party, a right-wing fundamentalist movement which had as a goal to turn the United States into a Theocracy by putting God in the constitution and installing Jesus Christ as the head of the government, along with prayer in the public schools. Women, being more conservative religiously, were a key part of the plan. Getting them the vote would ensure victory. Willard was independent, self-confident and charming. You just liked her. The mask she wore hid a powerful retrenchment at a time of social change. Women were becoming independent, breaking away from the religious sanction that they should obey their husbands. Willard promised to reshape that agenda to give it a new lease on life. She was the face lift patriarchy needed.

"The Vote as Just a Tool"

Susan B. Anthony had increasingly come to believe that the early feminists should stop trying to make all the changes they envisioned – from a woman's right to control her own body to equality in the workplace – and all come together to focus on the vote.

Matilda Joslyn Gage and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, on the other hand, saw the vote as just a tool. "Society is based on this four-fold bondage of woman--Church, State, Capital and Society--making liberty and equality for her antagonistic to every organized institution," they maintained. The ballot only had meaning as a means to end that bondage. It was not an end in itself. It was not even half a loaf of bread, Stanton maintained, just a crumb.

"Organized Army of Mother-Love"

Anthony wanted the vote. Bring everyone together around this single issue, get a victory, then work on the other issues, she thought. The organized woman's movement could count at that time only about 25,000 active advocates while Frances Willard's organized army of mother-love had about 250,000 ground troops. Anthony made a coalition with Willard. Gage, who unsuccessfully tried to stop it, saw this focus on the vote with conservative, fundamentalist support, as the death of the movement. And the charismatic Frances Willard as the most dangerous woman in America. If religious freedom in the country was lost, it wouldn't matter who voted, Gage believed. Along with the founding fathers, she reasoned that freedom would be at an end. A coalition with Christian fundamentalists could only lead to the infusion of conservative politics in the woman's rights movement. Yes, women might win the vote, but at what price? By 1920, when it finally passed, the woman suffrage amendment had the support of the Ku Klux Klan, who responded to the appeal to give women the right to vote because it was a way to maintain white, native born supremacy since white, native born women outnumbered both "Negroes and immigrants."

"Another Look at Sarah Palin"

Knowing about Frances Willard, let's take another look at Sarah Palin. Palin is a member of one of the most fundamentalist Christian sects in American -- "The Assemblies of God". Her church believes that all Jews must take Jesus as their personal savior. Sarah Palin is an extreme right wing, evangelical, Christian. She has toyed with book banning. She believes Creationism should be taught in the schools. She opposes same-sex marriage. She opposed sex education in public high schools. She says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She wants that to be the law of the land. The Alaska governor opposes abortion except in the case of a threat to the mother's life. She believes it is "God's will" that America is fighting the war in Iraq and God is also busy on that pipeline up in Alaska. Sarah Palin has God on her side.

If the McCain-Palin ticket is elected, Sarah Palin will be one heart-beat away from the presidency. And that heart beats in a 72 year old body that has endured cancer four times.

Frances Willard is a major peg upon which we need to hang a thread as we weave our understanding of Sarah Palin. Are we ready to teach and discuss publicly the history of Christian fundamentalism's long-ranging assault on United States freedom? The future of our nation may well rest in our answer to that question.