# Concerned Women for America **Concerned Women for America (CWA)** — founded in 1979 in San Diego, California, by **Beverly LaHaye** as a conservative evangelical counter-organization to the **National Organization for Women (NOW)** — is the **largest self-identified conservative women's public policy organization in the United States** and one of the principal institutional homes of the women-led religious right across the movement's 45-year modern history. CWA operates through a 501(c)(3) education arm and a 501(c)(4) Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC), with a Washington, D.C. national headquarters and a network of state directors and "Prayer/Action" local chapters across the country. Its core policy commitments — opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment (the founding animating issue), opposition to legal abortion, opposition to same-sex marriage and broader LGBTQ-rights expansions, advocacy for religious liberty, support for school choice, and opposition to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child — position it at the center of the social-conservative policy agenda of the Reagan era and subsequent periods. CWA matters for the KB for three reasons. First, its **founding context and strategic positioning** — Beverly LaHaye's explicit framing of CWA as the grassroots women's counter to Betty Friedan's NOW, organized around the final push to defeat ERA ratification — make it one of the canonical institutional products of the 1970s-1980s [[New Right]] mobilization, alongside [[Paul Weyrich]]'s infrastructure-building, [[Phyllis Schlafly]]'s [[Eagle Forum]], and [[Tim LaHaye]]'s convening work that produced the [[Council for National Policy]]. Second, its **LaHaye family institutional origin** — Beverly LaHaye's marriage to Tim LaHaye, and the coordination between CWA and Tim LaHaye's separate institutional ventures — illustrates one of the most documented cases of husband-and-wife movement-building in the modern religious right, with the two organizations operating in parallel across decades. Third, its **sustained institutional continuity across the post-Beverly-LaHaye period** — Penny Nance's CEO tenure since 2010, the organization's continued grassroots scale (CWA claims ~500,000 members), and its ongoing role in judicial-confirmation advocacy, legislative advocacy, and campaign-cycle mobilization — makes it one of the principal vehicles through which religious-right women's organizing continues to shape Republican-coalition politics. ## Founding (1978-1979) CWA's founding account, which Beverly LaHaye has recounted across interviews and the organization's official history, traces to her viewing a 1978 television interview with Betty Friedan in which Friedan was framed as representing American women. LaHaye's reaction — that Friedan did not speak for conservative Christian women — produced the organizational impulse. The specific founding steps: - **1978**: LaHaye held a prayer meeting at Scott Memorial Baptist Church in El Cajon, California (the congregation pastored by her husband Tim LaHaye) that drew approximately 1,200 women - **1979**: CWA formally incorporated as a non-profit organization - **1985**: National headquarters relocated from San Diego to Washington, D.C. The founding context was the final push to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. ERA had been approved by Congress in March 1972 and sent to the states with a 1979 ratification deadline, subsequently extended to June 1982. CWA's founding mobilization was specifically oriented toward preventing the final three state ratifications needed for ERA to take effect — a mobilization that, alongside Phyllis Schlafly's parallel and earlier work, successfully prevented ERA ratification by the 1982 deadline. ## Beverly LaHaye Beverly LaHaye (b. April 30, 1929 or per some sources 1930) is CWA's founder and was the organization's principal public face for its first three decades. Her biographical profile: - Born in Detroit, Michigan - Married Tim LaHaye in 1947 at age 17; they remained married until Tim's 2016 death - Four children; multiple grandchildren - Author of multiple books on Christian family life, conservative women's politics, and related topics — including *The Act of Marriage* (co-authored with Tim LaHaye, 1976), *I Am a Woman by God's Design*, and many others - CNP member; participated in the 1981 founding meeting of the [[Council for National Policy]] alongside Tim LaHaye's public profile was built around her framing of Christian womanhood as an active political and domestic identity, in contrast to second-wave feminism's framing of women's equality. Her public speeches, radio commentary, and writing consistently positioned CWA as a movement of "women who are not represented by the women's movement." ## Organizational Structure CWA operates through a bifurcated structure standard for advocacy organizations: - **CWA (501(c)(3))**: The education arm; produces policy research, educational materials, and prayer/action chapter activities - **CWALAC (501(c)(4))**: The Legislative Action Committee; the advocacy arm that engages in lobbying and election-cycle issue advocacy - **Young Women for America (YWA)**: The college-level affiliate launched in the 2000s to organize on university campuses CWA's grassroots structure is built around **Prayer/Action Chapters** — local groups that combine prayer practice with advocacy organizing. The organization claims approximately 500,000 members and supporters. State directors coordinate chapter activity across ~40 states. ## Policy Agenda CWA's stated core priorities have been substantially consistent across the organization's 45-year history: ### "Seven Core Issues" (current framing) - **Defense of the family**: Opposition to same-sex marriage, advocacy for traditional family structures - **Sanctity of human life**: Opposition to legal abortion; support for pro-life legislation - **Education**: School choice advocacy; opposition to Common Core; advocacy for parental rights in education - **Religious liberty**: Advocacy for religious exemptions and opposition to policies characterized as burdening religious practice - **National sovereignty**: Opposition to UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and related international instruments - **Sexual exploitation**: Anti-pornography advocacy; anti-trafficking work - **Support for Israel**: Christian Zionist positioning on Middle East policy ### Historical Positions - **Opposition to ERA (founding mobilization)** - **Opposition to ERA's successor bills and equivalent state-level proposals** - **Opposition to Federal Equal Rights Amendment ratification in the 2019-2022 revival effort** - **Support for Trump I and [[Trump II]] judicial nominations** - **Support for the *[[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]]* (2022) decision overturning *Roe* ## LaHaye Family Institutional Coordination The parallel institutional work of Beverly LaHaye (CWA) and [[Tim LaHaye]] (Council for National Policy convener, Left Behind author, political organization founder) is one of the most documented cases of husband-and-wife religious-right movement-building: - **CNP**: Both LaHayes participated in the 1981 founding meeting; both remained senior figures across CNP's history - **Publishing**: Both authored extensively; their co-authored *The Act of Marriage* became one of the best-selling Christian sex manuals - **Political coordination**: CWA's legislative priorities substantially overlapped with Tim LaHaye's political organizational priorities across the 1980s-2000s - **Post-Tim death (2016)**: Beverly LaHaye has continued as CWA's Chairman Emeritus through the subsequent period The LaHaye institutional partnership template is a distinctive feature of the religious right's mid-century organizational style — coordinated but separately institutionalized political, publishing, and grassroots work. ## Penny Nance Era (2010-) Penny Young Nance has served as CEO and President of CWA since 2010. Nance's profile: - Previously a Federal Communications Commission adviser under the [[George W. Bush]] administration - Active in conservative media as commentator, author of *Feisty & Feminine: A Rallying Cry for Conservative Women* (2016) - Led CWA's engagement in judicial confirmation advocacy for the Trump I Supreme Court nominees (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett) - Led CWA's organizational response to the 2022 *Dobbs* decision Under Nance's leadership, CWA has continued its advocacy profile while adapting organizationally — including launching Young Women for America campus chapters and expanding digital organizing alongside traditional chapter-based grassroots work. ## CWA and the KB Ecosystem CWA sits at the intersection of several institutional clusters the KB documents: - **LaHaye family cluster**: Tim LaHaye (spouse, co-founder of CNP), their publishing ventures, and their separate political organizations - **CNP cluster**: Both LaHayes were founding CNP members; CWA's leadership has remained active in CNP - **Religious right infrastructure**: Alongside [[Family Research Council]], Eagle Forum (Schlafly), [[Focus on the Family]], and the [[Moral Majority]]'s successor organizations - **Counter-organization identity**: Explicitly founded as the conservative counter to NOW; the parallel of "mirror organization" strategy appears across the religious right's 1970s-1980s organizational building ## Ongoing Relevance CWA's contemporary role includes: - **Judicial confirmation advocacy**: Principal grassroots mobilization organization for religious-right-aligned Supreme Court and federal appellate nominations - **Legislative advocacy**: Active on federal legislation relating to abortion, religious liberty, and LGBTQ policy - **Election-cycle issue advocacy**: Voter-education materials, voter-guide distribution, and candidate-rating publications - **Campus organizing**: Young Women for America chapters at universities - **International advocacy**: Engagement with UN-related policy debates on family and women's issues ## Connection to the KB Ecosystem - **[[Tim LaHaye]]**: Beverly LaHaye's husband; parallel religious-right institutional figure. - **[[Phyllis Schlafly]]**: Anti-ERA movement parallel; Eagle Forum was the other principal conservative women's organization. - **[[Paul Weyrich]]**: Contemporary religious-right infrastructure-builder; coordination across the movement. - **[[Council for National Policy]]**: Both LaHayes were founding members; CWA leadership remains active. - **[[Family Research Council]]**: Sister religious-right policy organization. - **[[Heritage Foundation]]**: Policy-movement parallel. ## See Also - [[Tim LaHaye]] - [[Phyllis Schlafly]] - [[Council for National Policy]] - [[Family Research Council]] - [[Paul Weyrich]]