The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported Saturday that former Georgia State Senator Nancy Schaefer and her husband Bruce have been found dead. The GBI believes the cause of death to be murder-suicide.
From AJC:
Sen. Don Thomas, a physician and who said he knew the couple well, said he believed Bruce Schaefer, 74, had cancer.
“In those moments, you are not at your complete sanity,” said Thomas, of Dalton. “Some people figure the best way is to end it for both of you. They were married for so long. Loved each other so much. When you see somebody that you love so much, every now and then, you think the best way out of it is to go and be with the Lord. ”
Nancy Schaefer was a prominent figure in Georgia state politics for decades.
Schaefer founded Family Concerns, Inc. in 1986, a conservative organization which lobbied on behalf of “family values” at all levels of government. Over the years, Schaefer hosted numerous different radio programs and was the Republican nominee for Lt. Governor of Georgia in 1994. In 1998, Schaefer became the first woman candidate for Governor of Georgia.
Schaefer was elected to the Georgia State Senate from the 50th District in 2004. However, Schaefer lost her seat to fellow Republican Jim Butterworth in a 2008 runoff. Schaefer’s defeat in 2008 was seen by some as a huge blow to the Religious Right. In the AJC article about her death, environmental lobbyist Neil Herring reflected on the influence of Schaefer on Georgia politics:
Neill Herring, a veteran environmental lobbyist, said Schaefer came to symbolize “a period in Georgia history where the Christian right was really in the ascendancy. I almost feel like her defeat in the last election was a sign that that power had began to wane.”
Schaefer served for eight years as a trustee of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. According to her bio, Schaefer represented the ERLC at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Bejing, the U.N. Conference on Human Settlements in Istanbul and the U.N. Conference on Food in Rome.
Schaefer was also a former 1st-Vice President of the Georgia Baptist Convention and was a member of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Toccoa.
What a hypocrite this woman was! This is an appropriate end to a hate-filled life. Those who praise her did not know her. Very creepy, always consumed with telling others how to live their lives.
If she was the one shot, she wouldn’t be a hypocrite, would she?
This is very sad. It must be a terrible experience for her family. Although she claimed Christianity, she gave little consideration for those who were different from her. On the political stage, if I thought like many Republican Fundamentalists, I would take credit for her death as being a divine answer to prayers. Thankfully I have never prayed for the death of someone I disagreed with and do not foresee doing that.
I followed Schaeffer closely in the 80′s while I lived in NW Georgia. She was in the paper all the time; saw her on a cold January night in Huntsville, Al. She was a true believer, I’m pretty sure very close to Leigh Ann Metzger from the Atlanta area, a Bush 41 up and comer and famous Samford Grad there for a while with Schlafly network of Concerned Women of America.
Ironically Nancy retired to Habersham County, where Barbara Brwon Taylor gained fame as an Episcopalian pastor. It’s a shame Taylor couldn’t bring her around to little more light.
I think it fair to say Tea Party Movement and Ralph Reed–from Toccoa–mesh with it is big part of Nancy’s legacy network. Ed Kilgore with NW Ga roots is pretty solid in my opinion in recent conversation with Sarah Posner at RDispatches.
Click over to my blog, AAron for the link to that discussion.
I think you will want to weigh in with a blog of your own in that discussion.
Please bring it to Barry Hankins attention.
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