Concerned Women for America

Concerned Women for America (CWA), American organization founded in San Diego, California, in 1979 by Beverly LaHaye as a conservative alternative to the liberal National Organization for Women. Its stated mission is to “protect and promote Biblical values among all citizens—first through prayer, then education, and finally by influencing our society—thereby reversing the decline in moral values in our nation,” and opposition to abortion, cloning, secular education, gambling, same-sex marriage, and drug abuse are among its policy positions. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C.

Concerned Women for America (CWA) advocates for a wide variety of conservative causes, and it monitors legislation at the state and federal levels and organizes support for bills that support its mission. CWA also operates research wings such as the Beverly LaHaye Institute and the Culture and Family Institute.

One of the most widely reported court battles involving CWA originated in Hawkins county, Tennessee, in 1983. A small group of fundamentalist Christian parents objected to school texts that they claimed promoted “secular humanism” and thus violated their religious beliefs. When the school board did not respond favourably to their request for alternative textbooks, the parents filed suit in federal district court (Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education). CWA provided legal counsel for the parents. What began as a local controversy developed into a nationally publicized struggle between CWA and the liberal group People for the American Way over the place of religion in American public life, parental rights, free exercise of religion, and control of the schools. Though the parents and CWA won a victory at the trial court level in 1986, the school board and People for the American Way won a reversal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 1987. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case.