Early Moral Majority insiders confirm abortion was not its founding issue

Evidence

Despite the persistence of the abortion myth—the fiction that the movement began in opposition to Roe v. Wade—other early leaders of the Religious Right have corroborated Weyrich’s account that the defense of Bob Jones University and other institutions galvanized evangelical leaders into a political force. “The Religious New Right did not start because of a concern about abortion,” Ed Dobson, formerly Falwell’s assistant at Moral Majority, said in 1990. “I sat in the non-smoke-filled back room with the Moral Majority, and I frankly do not remember abortion being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something.” — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 113

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 87; Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 122; Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 160 (+6 more)

Related

• Abortion was not a key evangelical voting issue before 1979. (similarity 0.90)
• The Religious Right’s founding narrative claims Roe v. Wade roused evangelicals from political passivity (similarity 0.90)
• The Religious Right’s abortion politics predate Roe and were chosen for strategic reasons (similarity 0.88)
• The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade (similarity 0.88)
• The abortion myth obscures the segregationist origins of evangelical activism. (similarity 0.87)
• Some evangelicals sincerely oppose abortion regardless of their movement’s origins (similarity 0.87)
• The Religious Right adopted abortion only after racial segregation failed to rally voters (similarity 0.86)
• The Religious Right strategists first favored gay rights over abortion as a mobilizing issue (similarity 0.86)
• Confronting the abortion myth could reorient the whole evangelical agenda (similarity 0.86)
• The religious right’s founding coalition was initially indifferent to abortion. (similarity 0.86)
• Weyrich himself asserted abortion was irrelevant to the Religious Right’s rise (similarity 0.85)
• Abortion failed for years to mobilize evangelicals before the IRS ruling (similarity 0.85)
• Conservatives commandeered the once-diverse antiabortion movement (similarity 0.85)
• Evangelicals adopted anti-abortion politics six years after Roe for political gain (similarity 0.85)
• The New Right founders launched with grievances unrelated to abortion (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Abortion was not a key evangelical voting issue before 1979. #corroborates (0.95) — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 246
• Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed #corroborates (0.88) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 160
• Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s #corroborates (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 122
• The Religious Right’s abortion politics predate Roe and were chosen for strategic reasons #contradicts (0.85) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 222
• Proposed rallying issues for the Religious Right included gay rights before abortion #expands (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 120