Janice Crouse

The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, an Illinois-based conservative group, convened a symposium in Washington earlier this month to discuss topics including “Defending Faith in an Age of Christophobia,” “The Pornography Industry,” and “Economic and Social Costs of Abortion.” 

At a panel titled “The ‘War on Women’: Myth or Reality?,” Concerned Women for America senior fellow Janice Shaw Crouse argued that it is in fact “those who present themselves as champions of women’s rights” who “constitute a very real war on women.” This “war,” Crouse declares, began in the 1960s and has “undermined and torn apart the faith, values and morality that have held together a diverse and multicultural people.”

Why, then, do we even have to ask, ‘Is there a war on women?’ The war began as early as 1960. Since then, our nation has been experiencing a harsh cultural winter. Howling winds of change, insidious myths and outright falsehoods have undermined and torn apart the faith, values and morality that have held together a diverse and multicultural people.

These myths and those attacks, those falsehoods by those who present themselves as champions of women’s rights constitute a very real war on women. It’s a senseless war, promoting casual sex, spreading the myth that women don’t need marriage, and pushing the cultural and public policies that inevitably lead women to be the majority of those in poverty. That war against women has loosened and upended many of the foundation stones of the Judeo-Christian principles.

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer isn’t the only one sticking up for Todd Akin. While the embattled Missouri congressman and senate nominee, who is a favorite of Religious Right activists and celebrated his primary victory by lauding God’s role in his success and appearing on Fischer’s show, has been abandoned and denounced by many Republican figures, Religious Right groups for the most part have remained firmly in his corner.

The New York Times reports that the Family Research Council hopes to make up the lost air-support from groups like American Crossroads and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which have dropped their planned advertisements:

Leaders of several conservative Christian and social-issues groups said they would step in with organizational, financial and news-media help. The Family Research Council said it now hoped to sponsor independent advertising and phone banks and solicit donations for Mr. Akin. And by Wednesday evening, those tiny donations requested by Mr. Akin’s campaign several times this week were starting to add up. Mr. Akin’s Twitter account reported that he had set a goal to raise $100,000 by midnight and had raised $88,000.

Akin also met with the secretive, right-wing Council for National Policy in Tampa, days before the city hosts the Republican National Convention:

Rep. Todd Akin was in Tampa Wednesday night meeting with top conservative groups and donors, several sources confirmed to POLITICO.

The embattled Missouri Senate candidate flew to Tampa to meet with members of the Council for National Policy, a secretive coalition of powerful conservative and evangelical leaders, activists, and donors.

A person attending the CNP gathering in Tampa confirmed Akin was there Wednesday evening, after several sources close to Akin in Missouri said he would be attending. It was unclear if Akin had been invited prior to his “legitimate rape” remarks Sunday.

Concerned Women for America’s Janice Shaw Crouse defended Akin as a victim of “the politics of personal destruction”:

He has been a pro-life advocate his whole career. He's been a man who has worked in crisis pregnancy centers. He's reached out to women and helped women in numerous ways in his private life. So it's very unfortunate that he's one who used words so insensitively, and he apologized for them, of course, and retracted from them.

But I think the bigger question for me is this whole business of the politics of personal destruction. We have a very, I think, appalling double-standard in this country where Republicans are held to these standards that are appropriate but somehow the Democrats get a pass. Vice President Biden, for instance, most recently and most - in the headlines talked about you're going to put those, put everybody in chains.

Gary DeMar’s American Vision even accused the GOP leadership of engaging in a “legitimate political gang rape” of Akin:

Legitimate political gang rape

We expect leftists, liberals, and other miscreants to pounce opportunistically, to lie, cheat, and twist (all the while drooling) over a phrase like “legitimate rape” when uttered by a strong conservative Christian politician. But should we expect the same from alleged conservatives?

Yet this is exactly what we’ve seen from several prominent conservatives in the wake of a media gaffe from U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin (R-MO) in regard to alleged “legitimate rape” and abortion.

…

There is, after all, the distinct possibility that if abortion were outlawed but with an exception for “rape,” that many of the women who buy abortions purely out of convenience today would then simply claim to have been raped in order to procure the legality.

For some reason, even to mention the possibility that a woman may lie about being raped is supposed to be politically incorrect—untouchable. It enrages leftists, and for some reason, therefore, frightens conservatives. Are a woman’s intentions never to questioned—completely off limits—when she claims to have been raped?

The answer is generally yes, but there is a least one major exception to this: When she intends to use that claim as justification to murder an innocent third party, a baby. The right to life trumps the right to privacy.

Liberals may wish us to believe that no woman would ever stoop so low as to lie about being raped. But this simply does not comport with what we Christians know about fallen human nature. We, conservatives, all agree that millions of women annually conspire to commit murder on their unborn babies. So do you expect me to feel it unacceptable to believe they would lie about why? This is political correctness run amok. Why, after all, would someone willing to kill out of convenience not also lie for various reasons out of convenience?

UPDATE: CNN reports that Tony Perkins of the FRC and Restoration Project organizer David Lane are both standing behind Akin:

“Following the pounding of Todd Akin by the GOP kings and lieutenants in the last 36 hours, I've come to the conclusion that the real issue is the soul of America,” wrote David Lane, an evangelical activist who’s influential in the Republican Party, in an e-mail to fellow activists Thursday morning.

“The swift knee-jerk reaction to throw Akin, a strong conservative pro-life, pro-family born again Christian under the bus by some in the Republican Party is shining the light on their actual agenda,” Lane continued.

“We haven't seen anything this vicious since some of the same operatives did this to (Sarah) Palin.”

...

In a note to supporters Wednesday night, conservative Family Research Council President Tony Perkins heaped criticism on the GOP for abandoning Akin.

"Todd Akin has a long and distinguished record of defending women, children, and families – and unlike the GOP establishment, I refuse to throw him under the bus over one inarticulate comment for which he has apologized,” wrote Perkins, who is in Tampa attending events leading up the convention.

“As for the GOP, it has no rational basis for deserting Akin when it has stood by moderate Republicans who've done worse,” Perkins continued. “Singling out Todd suggests a double standard, designed to drive out social conservatives.”

Last month, the War on Women reached a new level when every single Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against a reauthorization of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). VAWA has been reauthorized with broad bipartisan support twice since its original passage, but this year, Republicans objected to the inclusion of new provisions to protect LGBT people and immigrant women.

On her radio show last week, Janet Mefferd discussed the battle over VAWA reauthorization with Concerned Women for America’s Janice Crouse.

Crouse charged that VAWA – which grants funds to local communities to develop programs combatting domestic violence – mostly funds “reeducating programs for judges to try to train them in the principles of feminism and so-called ‘women’s rights.’”

Crouse and Mefferd were especially scornful of new provisions protecting immigrants and LGBT people and an eliminated provision making it easier to combat date rape on campuses, with Crouse warning that women would just abuse the system to get green cards and make false accusations of date rape.

Crouse: Quite frankly, much of the Violence Against Women funds reeducating programs for judges to try to train them in the principles of feminism and so-called ’women’s rights.’

Mefferd: Wow, that’s what we need, we need more indoctrination of judges, right?

Crouse: Right. [laughs]

...

Mefferd: So they’ve expanded this to cover more subgroups, but why can’t it just, if you’re going to have a domestic violence piece of legislation, why can’t it just cover anyone who’s affected by domestic violence? Is this just another one where they’re trotting out their typical liberal ways and, you know, ‘We’ve got to emphasize non-discrimination against sexual orientation, etc. etc.’ Is that just kind of the agenda here again?

Crouse: Exactly right. Plus, you have a number of women from other countries who marry Americans to come to this country, and then they want out of the marriage. Well, VAWA provides a way for them to get out, a very easy way for them to get out.

One of the things that I found particularly troubling, and thank goodness the Republicans stood up against this, was the effort to change dating rape to not require clear and convincing evidence, and that’s a legal term, clear and convincing evidence, but instead to require preponderance of evidence, which is a much lower standard and is not clear and convincing. So a girl the next morning could just say, ‘Well, I really made a mistake,’ and accuse a guy of date rape, or have any kind of regrets and accuse a guy of date rape.

Mefferd: Well, isn’t that unconstitutional, to lower the standard there on crime?

Crouse: Well, I’m not a constitutional specialist, but in terms of legal ramifications, it’s disastrous.