Don`t be misled by her delicate, pastel appearance: the cloud of blond hair; the long, pink nails; the robin`s-egg-blue suit with the rose blouse.
Instead, look at the ceramic mug Beverly LaHaye sips coffee from, the one emblazoned with the words ”Boss Lady.”
There may be a spun-sugar exterior, but it surrounds a tough, unyielding center and a single-minded sense of mission that has propelled LaHaye into the forefront of the conservative women`s movement.
LaHaye, 62, is founder and president of Concerned Women for America, which claims about 600,000 members in all 50 states. By comparison, the National Organization for Women claims 250,000 members.
Although detractors question LaHaye`s membership figures, alleging she counts everyone who has ever contributed to her group, LaHaye says the number represents ”people who have actively done something with us financially, support-wise, in activities and action over the last 18 months.”
These are the women, usually homemakers and mothers, she refers to as
”my ladies,” along with, by her estimate, about 100,000 men who also have joined her organization.
David Crane, vice president of People for the American Way, a constitutional liberties organization usually associated with liberal causes, calls Concerned Women for America ”a grass-roots organizational force to be reckoned with.”
Of LaHaye, Crane says, ”she is … the June Cleaver of America.”
From her spacious office in downtown Washington, tastefully decorated in shades of gray, pink and mauve and featuring a picture window with a view of the Washington Monument, LaHaye, whose salary is $52,000 a year, directs her organization with the fervor of a general immersed in battle.
She supervises a staff of 26 (including five men), lectures, writes books and a monthly column for her group`s Family Voice magazine, hosts a daily radio program, appears on TV talk shows and testifies before Congress as a representative of the conservative viewpoint.
She was recently invited to the White House, with more than a dozen other conservative leaders, for a chat with President Bush.
Along her office walls are all the symbols that define LaHaye`s life: a large painting of Christ holding a baby, an American flag on a standard, a photo of herself with former President Ronald Reagan, and a huge document attesting to her status as a member of the Board of Regents at Rev. Jerry Falwell`s Liberty University.
On a table is a large framed photograph of her husband, Southern Baptist minister Tim LaHaye, whom she describes as ”my greatest supporter.”
A huge vase full of long-stemmed yellow roses-”my greatest weakness”-
sent by a son for Mother`s Day, dominates her desk. All four of her children, she notes, sent her flowers for Mother`s Day.
LaHaye says that at an earlier point in life she was ”a turtle” and adds, ”I was very much an introvert, I had an inferiority complex.”
Married at 18 to Tim LaHaye, a fellow student at Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., LaHaye once wrote of the early years of her marriage that she felt she was serving the Lord when she picked up her husband`s socks.
”He picks up his own socks now,” she says with a laugh. ”I think I was using that very simple story to illustrate the fact you don`t have to be a doctor of theology, you don`t have to be a great spokesperson or whatever to serve the Lord.”
`Capsule stages` of life
LaHaye refers several times to the ”capsule stages” she believes a woman`s life goes through; after passing through the stage in which she bore and raised two sons and two daughters, she evolved, somewhat to her surprise, into the stage of organizer and leader. What galvanized her to action was the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.
It was around 1977 or `78, she says, when she ”started paying close attention” to the women`s movement and began wondering, ”Was I out of step with the women of America? What was happening? Because I just couldn`t fit into what they were supporting.”
In October 1978, LaHaye says, she ”pulled together a few women” in San Diego, where she and her husband were living, and ”we looked into the whole issue and they said, `Bev, we`ve got to do something,` and I was looking at the rest of them to do something.”
At that point, they rented a hall in San Diego and invited local churchwomen to come and hear a report on the progress of the ERA. From that sprang a newspaper reporting on where the ERA stood and speaking engagements for LaHaye in neighboring states.
”Two years later we began forming our chapters. That`s when we really began to have massive growth.”
The name Concerned Women for America dates back to that embryonic stage in San Diego.
”I named it,” LaHaye says with a laugh. ”You`re not going to believe this. The only reason I named it that was because when we rented this community hall, the hall owners said, `What`s the name of the organization?”` When LaHaye said, ”We`re just a group of ladies in the community,” the reply was ”we only rent to organizations.”
”So we went out for coffee. . . . I said: `Ladies, we gotta have a name. What should we call ourselves?` I said, `Oh, Concerned Women for America.` I laughed when I said it-I never meant it to be serious-and the other women said, `That`s it.` ”
LaHaye estimates that there are 1,000 to 1,200 chapters across the country. Each ”prayer and action” chapter is a local organization overseen by an area representative, and each chapter devotes itself to issues of interest in its specific area.
`Very strong pro-life`
According to Laurie Tryfiantes, Concerned Women`s national field director, individual chapters might be involved in fundraising and volunteer work for pro-life issues and centers, work on opposing pornography, stage school curriculum reviews, or promote drug-awareness weeks.
LaHaye says the issue at the top of her own agenda, and presumably the one that motivates most of her members as well, is what she defines as ”the sanctity of human life.”
She describes herself as ”very strong pro-life” and says this issue has to take priority because ”it affects so many other things, how we feel about euthanasia, how we feel about children who are handicapped . . . so many things.”
Two months ago, LaHaye`s daughter gave birth to a son with Down`s syndrome, an event LaHaye says ”made me more committed to my pro-life stand than I guess anything I`ve ever done before.”
She describes the child, Stephen, as ”a little package of joy.”
If LaHaye speaks in measured tones on the subject of being pro-life, she becomes practically vitriolic when the conversation turns to homosexuality.
”It destroys the family,” she says flatly. ”A lot of women have written me whose husbands turned out to be homosexuals, who totally devastated the family.”
But what about gay men or lesbians who don`t set out to marry a person of the opposite sex?
”They`re never content with what they`ve got,” she snaps back. ”They aggressively want to get more.”
She cites instances in which gay couples have tried to obtain the same rights as heterosexual couples for insurance purposes or health benefits.
One thing that especially distresses her, she says, is ”homosexuals teaching in school, being Boy Scout leaders. . . . ”I`m not saying they all are, but the movement itself is aggressively trying to go after boys.”
Not surprisingly, LaHaye is anathema to homosexual groups. Robin Kane, spokeswoman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, accuses LaHaye of
”distorting issues” involving the gay and lesbian communities. ”There`s no debate to be had with a woman who believes I don`t have a right to exist.” Family figures in
If you ask LaHaye about anything involving her personal life, her family figures into almost every answer.
What`s the last movie she saw?
”Beethoven”-because the LaHayes once had a huge St. Bernard, just like the film`s canine hero.
What does she do to relax?
For the last 18 years, the family has rented a houseboat-only now, with all nine grandchildren, it`s two houseboats-and gone water skiing on Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border.
”We don`t see other people for a whole week,” LaHaye says with satisfaction. ”No radio, no television, no phone.”
Because Concerned Women for America`s tax-exempt status prevents the organization from endorsing political candidates, LaHaye stresses that any views she offers about the upcoming presidential election are hers and not the group`s.
”Bill Clinton scares me,” she says, ”because I feel he has a value system that`s not supportive of good strong family support.”
As evidence she cites his views in favor of abortion rights and ”all those stories floating around, and he doesn`t deny some of them and just passes them off as something in his past.”
Of Ross Perot she says: ”We do know he`s pro-choice and we also know he supports homosexual rights . . . he scares me probably more than Clinton. I think he would be totally out of touch with the common man.”
When Hillary Clinton`s name comes up-along with her remark that she could have ”stayed home and baked cookies and had teas” instead of working-LaHaye looks like the cat who swallowed the canary.
”The day she said that, a ripple went out across America that caused quite a furor,” LaHaye says. ”My own ladies as well were kind of offended by that. It sounded like a putdown.”
No debater
Predictably, George Bush heads her personal list of candidates.
”I`m looking for a candidate to support my pro-life beliefs,” she says. ”Bush is very much pro-life. No (other candidate) comes close to his commitment to the unborn.”
LaHaye says she does a ”lot of networking” with her friend Phyllis Schlafly, president of Eagle Forum, another conservative women`s group.
Schlafly says LaHaye ”has a slightly different appeal . . . she`s gone particularly for the church women.”
LaHaye cites Schlafly`s debating prowess and says she`s not much of a debater herself.
”My expertise, I think, is motivating women to action,” she says.
