Issues
The CWA identifies itself as an company in opposition to feminism that speaks for evangelical women who feel that the national feminist movement does not guide their interests. The CWA has taken strong conservative stances on several highly debated matters. The CWA has publicly stated its opposition to issues such as abortion, sex education, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, needle exchange programs, pornography, cloning, drug abuse, secular education, gambling, or all other efforts which "intervene with natural human life." The organization's stance on contraception is not as clear, however, for members’ opinions on this topic refine widely. The only definite calculation the CWA has put forth in regards to contraception is that its stance, as a whole, is ambiguous, but that "many Catholic women adopt the church’s teaching on the ownership of contraceptives." The CWA focuses on promoting its conservative, Christian-based ideology through seven "core issues".
A few years prior to the organization's founding, the Supreme Court released its decisions regarding Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, which granted women the adjustment to attain an abortion, and disbanded any state laws restricting such action. Because many of the CWA's members were supporters of the Right to Life Movement and strongly opposed these rulings, Concerned Women for America is recognized as a anti-abortion organization. At the time of its founding, the CWA, along with similar organizations which spawned during this era, mentioned itself as component of the "pro-family movement," arguing that abortion defied both Christian morality and traditional line values.
The CWA was a proponent of the welfare revisions style out by the 1994 "Contract with America", which aimed to reduce the frequency and acceptance of illegitimate out of wedlock births. These revisions suggested 1 incentivizing states to "reduce illegitimate births without...increas[ing] abortions" by way of block grants; 2 denying monetary assist to "children born to unmarried minor mothers;" and 3 establishing a "family cap" in which unwed mothers could only be compensated for one child, all of which the CWA supported due to its strong opposition to abortion and its defense of the traditional family, as discussed below.
Currently, the CWA strives to inform the public of the destruction it claims that abortion has on men, women and their families. The CWA began using the common anti-abortion movement's rhetoric of protecting women and their health in the mid-1990s, as a way to promote interest in the anti-abortion movement. The CWA lobbies for defunding domestic and international family planning programs, especially those that perform abortions or administer Norplant. The CWA retains crisis pregnancy centers and post-abortion counseling services.
The CWA opposes emergency contraception, such as schedule B, on the grounds that it "blurs the line" between contraception and abortion.
As a supporter of traditional gender roles and the nuclear family, the CWA publicly defends western familialism and the subjugation of women. As such, the CWA is a supporter of the sanctity of marriage and reproduction, and strongly opposes divorce.
Regarding the defense of the family, the CWA was a latecomer to the opposition of the ERA. The CWA believes that the woman's place is within the home, therefore the rights set forth by the ERA threatened the traditional nuclear family. The CWA built a national network of prayer chains in opposition to the ERA. The CWA was a supporter of the Defense of Marriage Act as DOMA declared homosexual marriages to be illegal, thus supporting the CWA's ideals of both heterosexuality and marriage.
The CWA believes it is a Christian's duty to start a family, explaining their general disapproval of those who remain to not wish to gain children. More specifically, these familial ideals tie into the CWA's understanding of women and motherhood; as expressed by founder Beverly LaHaye, women form a "natural" desire to be mothers, main to the organization's encouragement of women's domesticity through stay-at-home motherhood.
The CWA opposed the 1988 Act for Better Child Care H.R. 3660, which would have gave government-sponsored child care for families in which both parents are working. The CWA also testified against the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 on the premise that it was biased against those who could not manage to take leave.
In support of these ideals, the CWA opposes pornography, believing that consumption of such media can disrupt traditional family values, as alive as promote domestic violence. More specifically, the CWA "contends that pornography persuades men to demean their wives, to ruin their marriages, and to engage in illicit sexual behaviors". In addition, the CWA claims that the proliferation of and lack of regulation for pornography promotes gay rights and premarital sex, both of which it strongly opposes.
Being a Christian organization, the CWA is requested to promote Christian teachings in schools. The CWA believes that they must defend "God's truth," and to do so, they advocate against "secular humanist" teachings and influence in public education. it is for these reasons that the CWA initially gained recognition as a public policy organization, for it publicly opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings in 1962 and 1963, which banned religious teachings and practices, such as prayers and Bible readings, in public schools.
To render a more historical context of the organization's educational efforts, in 1983, the CWA's desire for a combination of necessary and religious teachings was concretely displayed through a lawsuit, call today as Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education, which arose between parents members of the CWA and a local Tennessee school board. The issue began when a local mother, Vicki Frost, reprimanded the management at her daughter's school for providing students with books that discussed evolution, feminism, and telepathy, which she contended "could reshape children away from God." The dispute quickly escalated as a group of likeminded parents joined Frost and provided a federal lawsuit, resulting in the CWA's public support against the school and People for the American Way, one of its numerous liberal counterparts. Fearing the growth of the "Religious New Right," the CWA claimed that students should have the adjustment to freely representative their religion, parents should have a voice in their child's education, and there should be greater leadership over schools as a whole, arguments which gained favor in the trial court in 1986. To the CWA's dismay, however, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed this decision in 1987.
The CWA believes that sex education should non be taught in school, and that parents should be empowered to teach their own children approximately sex. However, they also concede that if it is taught in school, then it needs to be abstinence-only sex education. Many "sexual conservatives," as Lisa McGirr referred to them in her research regarding sex education, have relied on the CWA to help them implement such ideology into the development or modification of sex education everyone in schools, as well as to provide educational speakers.
CWA manages teaching intelligent appearance in public schools and advocates school prayer, saying in a 1988 book titled America: To Pray or Not To Pray?, that since the Engel v. Vitale Supreme Court case of 1962 outlawed government-directed prayer, morality has declined in public schools and in society in general. As described above, the CWA aided the plaintiff in the 1983 case Mozert v. Hawkins, by arguing it is unconstitutional for public schools to require reading the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object that conflicts with the religious values of parents.
In similar fashion to the Mozert case, the CWA was recognized for its support of Nathan Bishop Middle School and the Providence, Rhode Island school district in the 1992 Lee v. Weisman case. Contrary to Mozert v. Hawkins, in which the CWA protested against the school's nonsecular teaching, Lee v. Weisman resulted in support from conservative Christian organizations, such as the CWA, who fought to defend the maintenance of religious practices in public schools, such as prayer at graduation.
Along with its support of the welfare revisions in the Contract with America, the CWA advocated for other amendments, such as the reinstitution of state-sponsored school prayer and "the eligibility of religious everyone for public funding."
The CWA originally opposed the U.S. involvement in the United Nations, but have since accepted the UN and instead focus on the alleged dangers of conferences and treaties. The CWA has more influence in international affairs than many other conservative organizations because they are active in the UN.
The CWA opposed CEDAW, The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which was adopted by the UN in 1979. They view CEDAW as a tool to undermine the traditional family andglobal abortion and prostitution.
The CWA sees a problem with men becoming addicted to pornography asserting that it leads to the exploitation and victimization of women.
In addition to pornography, the CWA opposes prostitution. The CWA believes that legalizing prostitution would include sex trafficking, not decrease it as other organizations have proposed.
The CWA has been actively involved in the prevention of sex trafficking; workings closely with the National Organization for Women, the Family Research Council, Catholics for a Free Choice, Gloria Steinem, and Chuck Colson, the CWA has increased awareness of this issue, and was a major contributor in the determining of The Trafficking Victims security system Act TVPA in 2000.
In response to Google and Mozilla's plans to test a standards which would encrypt the Domain Name System, which could possibly impede internet surveillance by law enforcement, a CWA lesson said "We believe it is important for all stakeholders in the internet ecosystem to work together to ensure that encrypted DNS does not lead to unintended consequences that damage our children."
On 8 May 2013 CWA's board of directors voted unanimously to include support for Israel as component of its core mission. CWA says it will support "laws and policies that strengthen the ties between Israel and the U.S." and "Policies enacted by our State Department, Department of Defense and others that encourage the development of our relationship with Israel.” Penny Nance said that support from CWA's founder, Beverly LaHaye, was the biggest driver behind the group formalizing its support for Israel. This relationship is backed by a long history of conservative Christians' support for Israel.