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Toward the end of the eighth Republican presidential debate, the moderators introduced a new subject which has been absent from stump speeches and ignored in the seven previous debates. ABC’s Martha Raddatz, who covered the war in Iraq, asked the candidates whether young women should be required to sign up for Selective Service if the military draft is reinstated, just as young men are required to do.
Senator Marco Rubio, whose teenage daughters were seated in the first row, was called on first. “I have no problem whatsoever with people of either gender serving in combat,” Rubio began. “I do believe that Selective Service should be opened up for both men and women in case a draft is ever instituted.”
Rubio has been ridiculed for the way he seems to deliver memorized, canned talking points, but his answer suggests he was unprepared for this question. He said he had no problem with women in combat “so long as the minimum requirements necessary to do the job are not compromised.”
The debate was held the night before the Super Bowl, where some of the nation’s best athletes compete before a world audience. Since there’s no rule preventing “people of either gender” from playing football in the NFL, why has no woman ever appeared in the Super Bowl? Even if an exceptional woman could meet “the minimum requirements necessary to do the job” of playing football, that’s not good enough for the physical demands of the NFL – or for military combat.
Read more: http://www.eagleforum.org/publications/column/republicans-debate-women-drafted.html
About Phyllis Schlafly:
Phyllis Schlafly has been a national leader of the conservative movement since the publication of her best-selling 1964 book, “A Choice Not An Echo.” She has been a leader of the pro-family movement since 1972, when she started her national volunteer organization now called Eagle Forum.
In a ten-year battle, Mrs. Schlafly led the pro-family movement to victory over the principal legislative goal of the radical feminists, called the Equal Rights Amendment. An articulate and successful opponent of the radical feminist movement, she appears in debate on college campuses more frequently than any other conservative. She was named one of the 100 most important women of the 20th century by the Ladies’ Home Journal.
Mrs. Schlafly’s monthly newsletter called The Phyllis Schlafly Report is now in its 41st year. Her syndicated column appears in 100 newspapers, her radio commentaries are heard daily on 460 stations, and her radio talk show on education called “Eagle Forum Live” is heard weekly on 45 stations. Both can be heard on the Internet.
Mrs. Schlafly is the author or editor of 25 books on subjects as varied as family and feminism (The Power of the Positive Woman and Feminist Fantasies), nuclear strategy (Strike From Space and Kissinger on the Couch), education (Child Abuse in the Classroom), child care (Who Will Rock the Cradle?), and phonics (First Reader and Turbo Reader). Her most recent book: The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It.
Mrs. Schlafly is a lawyer and served as a member of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, 1985-1991, appointed by President Reagan. She has testified before more than 50 Congressional and State Legislative committees on constitutional, national defense, and family issues.
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