....In order to help preserve the very life of the republic, it is imperative that women should unite upon a platform of opposition to the teaching and aim of that ever most unscrupulous enemy of freedom - the Church.

          Woman's National Liberal Union Resolution 1890

Mrs Gage was one of the most outspoken feminist activists of the 19th century.
Indignant over "the wrongs inflicted upon one-half of humanity by the other half in the name of religion; finding appeal and argument alike met by the assertion that God designed the subjection of woman, and yet that her position had been higher under Christianity than ever before" she refuted such arguments at the annual convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association in Washingdon DC in 1878.

Her forty page essay "Woman, Church and State" was the basis of her book of the same name fully researched over the subsequent twenty years. It showed women how the woman-hating violence and abuse of women stemmed from religious doctrines and attitudes towards them promoted by the church. comparing it with the "Matriarchate" as she called the pre-Christian female based religions that celebrated womanhood that were wiped out by the degrading dogmas of patriarchal Christianity.
For an outline see Woman,Chruch and State

Annie Gaylor has devoted 15 pages of her book Women Without Superstition to the long campaigning life of this remarkable woman, (that alone is worth the modest price of the book alone.)

It includes one of her major speeches given to the Woman's National Liberal convention in 1890.The call for this convention was signed by representatives from twenty-seven states.

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