Evangelicals’ turn against Carter was rooted in racial segregation defense, not abortion

Evidence

Given Carter’s political troubles, the defection of evangelicals may or may not have been decisive. But it is certainly true that evangelicals, having helped propel Carter to the White House four years earlier, turned dramatically against him, their fellow evangelical, during the course of his presidency. And the catalyst for their political activism was not, as often claimed, opposition to abortion. Although abortion had begun to emerge as a rallying cry late in the 1980 campaign, the real roots of the Religious Right lay not in the defense of a fetus but in the defense of racial segregation. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 138

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Evangelicals punished Carter for abortion while Reagan had signed the most liberal abortion bill — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 131; The Religious Right includes more than fundamentalists — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 36; Evangelicals conspired against Carter’s reelection secretly (+10 more)

Related

• Evangelicals conspired against Carter’s reelection secretly (similarity 0.92)
• The Religious Right’s origins lay in defending racial segregation, not opposing abortion (similarity 0.92)
• Evangelicals punished Carter for abortion while Reagan had signed the most liberal abortion bill (similarity 0.88)
• The abortion myth obscures the segregationist origins of evangelical activism. (similarity 0.86)
• White evangelicals in 1980 chose image over co-religionist Carter and backed Reagan (similarity 0.85)
• Reagan’s 1980 appeal to evangelicals centered on school-tax-exemption segregation, not abortion (similarity 0.85)
• Evangelical conspiracy against Carter began well before his reelection campaign. (similarity 0.85)
• IRS regulations topped evangelicals’ 1979 grievances against Carter while abortion went unmentioned (similarity 0.84)
• The Religious Right includes more than fundamentalists (similarity 0.84)
• The Religious Right adopted abortion only after racial segregation failed to rally voters (similarity 0.83)
• Some evangelicals sincerely oppose abortion regardless of their movement’s origins (similarity 0.83)
• Unorganized evangelicals voted for Carter before the Religious Right existed (similarity 0.82)
• Progressive evangelicalism peaked in the mid-1970s with Carter’s election (similarity 0.82)
• Forced desegregation of Christian schools, not abortion, sparked the Christian Right (similarity 0.82)
• The Religious Right’s origin in segregation explains its embrace of Trump. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Forced desegregation of Christian schools, not abortion, sparked the Christian Right #corroborates (0.95) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 530
• Parental authority arguments let evangelicals defend segregated schools without defending segregation #qualifies (0.90) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 92
• White evangelicals in 1980 chose image over co-religionist Carter and backed Reagan #expands (0.85) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 244
• Segregationists resisted the racist label by invoking God, nature, science, or common sense. #corroborates (0.80) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 17
• Evangelical sex-ed opposition fused anticommunism, gun rights, and segregationist anxieties #corroborates (0.75) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 207
• Defending a Christian nation has meant defending the racial order #expands (0.75) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 476