It’s a classic case of “like mother, like son.” Andy Schlafly, the offspring of rabidly anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly, is the fruit(cake) that has not fallen far from the tree. Andy is engaged in what is being called the “Conservative Bible Project,” an attempt to reclaim the so-called good book from the (gasp! horror!) “bleeding heart” liberals who have been trying to make it gender inclusive and non-homophobic. If Andy has his way, God can again be a man, and a proud male chauvinist pig at that. “He” can be the preferred pronoun for every human being who’s not busy (as they should be) bearing kids, and of course Sodom and Gomorrah can be just desserts for attempting to engage in homosexual acts with heavenly messengers.

No doubt Andy’s conservative Bible will proclaim, as Bibles always have, that slavery is okay, men can have many wives (the Mormons had it right), and fathers can take their disobedient sons to the edge of town and stone them to death.

I’m sure it won’t correct those mistranslations from the original Hebrew, such as Mary being described as a “virgin,” when she was actually a “young woman.” Some scribe in the Middle Ages flunked Hebrew 101, or maybe he had another agenda.

I guess it’s rough for Andy Schlafly to be anything other than what he is, considering he has a mother who has dominated ultra right-wing politics in this country for decades.

Phyllis Schlafly has spent her time organizing to keep women (other than herself, of course) barefoot and pregnant (not to mention chained to housework and shopping) by opposing abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) through her infamous right-wing organization Eagle Forum.

In fact, she is often credited with defeating the ERA.

She has also been outspoken against gay rights, even though her other son, John, was outed in the early 90s by a now-defunct queer magazine.

The fact that one of the leading right-wing ladies in the U.S. has a gay son has been a thorn in her side ever since.

Asked about her gay son recently by Time Magazine, Schlafly said, “Well, I don’t try to run my children’s lives, and he has been very supportive. He works for the Eagle Forum.” According to Schlafly, sonny boy touts the Eagle Forum party line and opposes gay marriage. “It’s part of a need for a stable society.”

The problem with heterosexual marriage today, she believes, is “maybe only 5% a problem with gay activism, and 95% a problem with feminist activism.”

Andy, it seems, is a chip off the old block head.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca is co-editor of Avanti Popolo: Italians Sailing Beyond Columbus, and editor of Smash the Church, Smash the State: The Early Years of Gay Liberation, which has been nominated for an American Library Association award. His website is www.avicollimecca.com.