The 1978 ‘insignificant number of minority students’ IRS rule was Weyrich’s rallying issue

Evidence

As Douglass points out, white Americans’ claims to be preserving Christian order, America’s Christian heritage, or even “religious freedom” have long served as coverings for what has amounted to the exclusion of nonwhite and especially black Americans. In fact, historians like Randall Balmer trace the very birth of the Religious Right and its brand of Christian nationalism to a reaction to federal efforts to restrict the ability of conservative Christian schools to racially discriminate. During the early 1970s, when the IRS revoked Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status due to their racially discriminatory policies (like forbidding interracial dating), conservative Christian leaders interpreted this as an encroachment on their right to lead their religious academies as they saw fit. Thus, it is no overstatement to suggest that much of the Christian nationalist rhetoric born out of the Religious Right finds its roots in the desire to create boundaries of group membership around race and the right of white Americans to segregate themselves from minorities. — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 312 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

How did abortion finally become part of the Religious Right’s agenda? After mobilizing in opposition to the Internal Revenue Service, Paul Weyrich and leaders of the nascent Religious Right were savvy enough to recognize that they needed another issue besides defense of racial segregation to rally rank-and-file evangelicals to the voting booth. Opposition to abortion, however, was by no means the logical alternative. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 119 (#instantiates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Religious Right needed a rallying issue besides racial segregation — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 119; The Religious Right began as reaction to IRS desegregation of Christian schools. — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 312; Tax exemptions tied organized Christian resistance to IRS enforcement during desegregation — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 250 (+4 more)

Related

• The IRS’s Bob Jones revocation supplied Weyrich’s racial organizing issue (similarity 0.91)
• The Religious Right needed a rallying issue besides racial segregation (similarity 0.89)
• The IRS’s challenge to segregated schools, not abortion, birthed the Religious Right (similarity 0.89)
• Tax exemptions tied organized Christian resistance to IRS enforcement during desegregation (similarity 0.88)
• The Religious Right began as reaction to IRS desegregation of Christian schools. (similarity 0.86)
• Abortion failed for years to mobilize evangelicals before the IRS ruling (similarity 0.86)
• Forced desegregation of Christian schools, not abortion, sparked the Christian Right (similarity 0.85)
• Religious Right leaders reframed racism as religious freedom to mask self-interest (similarity 0.82)
• Segregationist schools’ tax-exemption fight catalyzed the New Right movement (similarity 0.82)
• A tax law ruling on segregation, not Roe, catalyzed the Religious Right (similarity 0.81)
• The Religious Right adopted abortion only after racial segregation failed to rally voters (similarity 0.81)
• 1978 pro-life upsets convinced Weyrich abortion could mobilize evangelical voters (similarity 0.80)
• Proposed rallying issues for the Religious Right included gay rights before abortion (similarity 0.79)
• Weyrich himself asserted abortion was irrelevant to the Religious Right’s rise (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The Religious Right began as reaction to IRS desegregation of Christian schools. #corroborates (0.85) — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 312