The abortion myth obscures the segregationist origins of evangelical activism.

Evidence

This is not to say that all evangelicals are racists. Not at all. The leaders of the Religious Right have been so successful in obfuscating the origins of their movement that most evangelical voters, I’m confident, are unaware that the catalyst for their political activism was a defense of racial segregation. I don’t even discount the possibility that, despite overwhelming and conclusive evidence to the contrary, some of the organizers themselves have come to believe the abortion myth. In an interview shortly before his death, Jerry Falwell offered his own revisionist history: “We were simply driven into the process by Roe v. Wade and earlier than that, the expulsion of God from the public square.” The beauty of the abortion myth is that it conceals an uglier truth. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 166

Categorization

• XREF: Directly invokes the book’s central revisionist thesis established in earlier chapters. — connects to: Abortion failed for years to mobilize evangelicals before the IRS ruling — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 106; The Religious Right adopted abortion only after racial segregation failed to rally voters — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 121; Some evangelicals sincerely oppose abortion regardless of their movement’s origins — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 143 (+14 more)

Related

• Some evangelicals sincerely oppose abortion regardless of their movement’s origins (similarity 0.93)
• Confronting the abortion myth could reorient the whole evangelical agenda (similarity 0.92)
• The Religious Right adopted abortion only after racial segregation failed to rally voters (similarity 0.91)
• The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade (similarity 0.90)
• The Religious Right’s founding narrative claims Roe v. Wade roused evangelicals from political passivity (similarity 0.89)
• Abortion was not a key evangelical voting issue before 1979. (similarity 0.88)
• The Religious Right’s origins lay in defending racial segregation, not opposing abortion (similarity 0.88)
• Early Moral Majority insiders confirm abortion was not its founding issue (similarity 0.87)
• The Religious Right’s abortion politics predate Roe and were chosen for strategic reasons (similarity 0.87)
• Evangelicals adopted anti-abortion politics six years after Roe for political gain (similarity 0.87)
• Abortion failed for years to mobilize evangelicals before the IRS ruling (similarity 0.87)
• Evangelicals’ turn against Carter was rooted in racial segregation defense, not abortion (similarity 0.86)
• Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s (similarity 0.85)
• Leading evangelicals initially endorsed Roe as a church-state separation victory (similarity 0.84)
• The religious right’s founding coalition was initially indifferent to abortion. (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• The Religious Right’s origins lay in defending racial segregation, not opposing abortion #corroborates (0.95) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 140
• Evangelicals’ turn against Carter was rooted in racial segregation defense, not abortion #corroborates (0.95) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 138
• Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed #expands (0.85) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 160
• Confronting the abortion myth could reorient the whole evangelical agenda #expands (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 177
• Abortion was not a key evangelical voting issue before 1979. #expands (0.80) — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 246
• Evangelical sex-ed opposition fused anticommunism, gun rights, and segregationist anxieties #expands (0.80) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 207
• The Religious Right’s founding narrative claims Roe v. Wade roused evangelicals from political passivity #responds-to (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 89
• Parental authority arguments let evangelicals defend segregated schools without defending segregation #corroborates (0.80) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 92
• Anti-abortion was chosen after other rallying issues were rejected #corroborates (0.80) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 254
• Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s #exemplifies (0.75) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 122
• Evangelical antigay activism grew from gender-role anxiety, not longstanding doctrine. #expands (0.75) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 146
• Abortion was adopted as a rallying issue because it could unite disparate cultural conservatives #qualifies (0.75) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 258
• Early abortion politics pitted Catholic lobbyists against Protestant Republicans, not secular against religious #expands (0.75) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 265
• Abortion opposition once spanned both parties and was not partisan #qualifies (0.72) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 270