Several legislators complained earlier this year that members of the Eagle Forum seated in the gallery had brought binoculars in order to peer at notes on Democratic lawmakers' desks.
The binoculars were put away, but the Eagle Forum, both here and nationwide, maintains its meticulous monitoring of "moral" political issues.The conservative watchdog group works for what it calls "pro-family" legislation, opposing feminism and abortion rights, and urges parents to monitor their children's exposure to topics like sex and evolution.
Although politicians and educators concede the Eagle Forum's visibility and success, some question its tactics. And they worry that its zealous approach gives it undue influence.
"It's a formidable group, but it's a very right-wing and narrow-minded group. And I think they have been dogged and successful in intimidating legislators and convincing people that their influence is larger than their number," said Rep. Dave Jones of Salt Lake, the state Democratic chairman.
"The problem is that they take very complicated issues and tend to boil them down to simple statements. People ingest that without really stopping to think what it really means. It frightens otherwise sensible and reasonable people," Jones said.
But if the Eagle Forum has made an art form out of special-interest lobbying, it has done so with hard work and missionary zeal. And even its critics concede the group's adherents are merely exercising their democratic rights.
"I respect the energy they put into what they do," said Steven Mecham, former assistant state superintendent of public instruction. "Others are basically contented with the status quo and the Eagle Forum is moving ahead and impacting government office and education and members of various boards."
Phyllis Schlafly founded the group in 1972 as the Stop ERA project, billing it as "An Alternative to Women's Lib." After the 1980 election, it became the "pro-family" Eagle Forum.
The group claims 80,000 male and female members nationwide, but most of those who lobby locally are women. In Utah, the group claims a membership in the hundreds but a mailing list of 15,000.
Over the years, the group has focused on issues ranging from equal rights and National Endowment for the Arts funding to national defense. But a central target remains women's rights activists.
"Feminists probably have done more to harm the family than any other group in the nation," says Gayle Ruzicka, president of the Utah Eagle Forum.
The forum's national brochure rips feminists for "their attacks on the family and homemakers, their use of `Anita Hill'-style tactics against men," and "their campaign for the misnamed Equal Rights Amendment with its hidden agenda."
The Eagle Forum's effectiveness has been enhanced by its willingness to form partnerships with like-minded groups. It joined Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition in Iowa last fall to work to defeat an equal rights amendment there, and has worked for years with Concerned Women for America.
Other Eagle Forum affiliates include National Right To Life, the Christian Action Council and Families Alert.
Schlafly said from her home in Alton, Ill., that the group's main project in recent years has been advocating parents' rights to monitor curricula in public schools and to choose private or home schooling.
Schlafly urges parents to stop school districts from teaching about evolution, sexuality, divorce, feminism, multiculturalism, pacifism, globalism, disarmament, death and suicide, as well as drug abuse, self-awarenessand alternative family arrangements.
"A lot of these courses are a device to get children to question their parents," Schlafly said.
The Utah chapter, which Schlafly calls "one of the best in the country," scored a victory in June when the state school board rejected a textbook commission's recommendation that guidelines be changed to show homosexuality as an "acceptable" lifestyle.
"We do not believe they should teach about homosexuality unless they teach that it's wrong," Ruzicka said.
Utah school officials said Eagle Forum members were present at all public hearings and state school board meetings and talked to board members regularly outside those meetings.
"This is the first time I can recall that we've had an identifiable group with two or three members there all the time," said State School Superintendent Scott Bean.
Mecham, Bean's assistant until July 1, said there is a growing national concern about conservative lobbying groups' ability to place its members on school boards.
"The balance of representation on school boards needs to be addressed now, because it will have an effect on our curriculums and directions on how we're to deal with our students," he said.