A broad pro-family coalition fractured along ideological lines in 1980

Evidence

IN THE SUMMER OF 1980, a pivotal event brought together Falwell, the LaHayes, and other architects of the Religious Right in dramatic fashion. Conservatives, it turns out, hadn’t been the only ones concerned with the fate of American families. Feminists, liberals, progressive churches, African American and Chicana activists, doctors, teachers, academics and professionals—even the National Gay Task Force—were all invested in strengthening and protecting families in the 1970s. Thinking that conservatives and liberals might come together in a common cause, President Carter organized a White House Conference on Families. Things didn’t go as planned. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 230

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what exactly transpired at the White House Conference on Families to convert shared concern into polarization? The rhetorical move (‘Things didn’t go as planned’) teases but doesn’t deliver the mechanism.
• XREF: connects to: Focus on the Family listeners were intensely politically mobilized by the late 1980s — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 199; Ideological proximity could hinder rather than help coalition formation — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 1244; Diverse ideological factions united to seal apartheid’s fate by the late 1980s — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1564 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Focus on the Family listeners were intensely politically mobilized by the late 1980s — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 199; Ideological proximity could hinder rather than help coalition formation — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 1244; Diverse ideological factions united to seal apartheid’s fate by the late 1980s — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1564 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Diverse ideological factions united to seal apartheid’s fate by the late 1980s #complicates (0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1564