Evangelical religious freedom defense was tied to Christian nationalism and gender conservatism

Evidence

In Obama’s second term, evangelical opposition manifested around the issue of religious freedom, and for evangelicals, “religious freedom” didn’t apply equally to all faith traditions; their defense of religious freedom was linked to their defense of “Christian America” and to their conservative gender regime. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 540

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what ‘religious freedom’ meant to evangelicals in the Obama era: not universal liberty but defense of Christian America and the gender order.
• XREF: Connects to the current academic debate over whether ‘religious freedom’ rhetoric functions as a cover for Christian nationalism and patriarchy. — connects to: Christian doctrine institutionalized women’s subordination despite early egalitarian impulses — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 204; Conservative Christians backed human rights to defend church and family against totalitarianism — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 124; Northern Baptist women’s reform agenda fused anti-Catholic nativism with defense of public schools — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 534
• SEED: Essay angle: how a universal-sounding principle (‘religious freedom’) gets deployed as an exclusive defense of one group’s privileges.