My name is Maggie McKneely and I am excited to join the Concerned Women for America (CWA) team as a Legislative Strategist. CWA’s bold adherence to Biblical truths and willingness to fight for them is refreshing in a city that seduces so many to conform to this world. It’s an organization I’m proud to represent.  

Since graduating from Patrick Henry College, I’ve been the federal lobbyist for the Home School Legal Defense Association, a role I held all throughout the COVID era. If there was a silver lining to those years, it was that the months-long shutdowns, radical classroom curriculum, and masking policies showed parents and legislators across the spectrum the importance of school choice. What was once a rarely touched upon issue area on Capitol Hill became a hot button topic. 

When asked what kind of government the Founders had created, Benjamin Franklin quipped “a republic, if you can keep it.” Keeping it requires a citizenry educated in the virtues and ideals necessary for self-government, and when public schools fail at doing that, other alternatives must be sought out. I was not homeschooled, so I recognize that that may not be the right option for every family. (My mom and I would have had way too much fun having tea parties and going on field trips around my Virginia hometown to spend any time on math!)  

For the moms who want what is best for their kids, for the girls who deserve the opportunity to use their gifts and talents, for the future of this experimental republic, education freedom is critical. CWA is committed to expanding opportunities for families to choose public school alternatives through state-level education savings accounts legislation and the Educational Choice for Children Act. I’m glad that I can use my years of education-policy focus to help push those efforts forward. 

But, like most of you, I am concerned about far more than just the state of education in America. Perhaps no issue can be more important to a women’s organization than the attempt to erase the very category of “woman” from society. From the swimming pool to the track field to even my niche, female-dominated world of Irish dance, the false ideology of transgenderism threatens those separate spaces that we have so long fought for. This, despite the continued cries for the “woman’s right” to end an unborn life. 

Our culture teaches that truth is fluid, changeable, that there can be both “women’s rights” and no firm definition of “woman.” But without a solid foundation on which to stand, people are feeling more lost, confused, and unfulfilled than ever. As Christians, we have a duty to shine the light of truth, to teach what the world can’t, and as advocates, to fight for it in the legislative arena. The dignity of women, the flourishing of families, the future of our country depends on that. I look forward to serving with each of you on the mission that God has called us to.