The IRS’s challenge to segregated schools, not abortion, birthed the Religious Right

Evidence

During the break immediately following the session, I sought out Weyrich to ensure that I had understood him correctly. He was emphatic. He had been trying since the Goldwater campaign in 1964 to mobilize evangelical voters, he said, by raising such issues as school prayer, pornography, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, and abortion, but nothing galvanized evangelical leaders to action until the Internal Revenue Service began to challenge the tax-exempt status of racially segregated schools. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 23

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates directly with the thesis central to the reader’s own material on how moral panics are really class/identity signaling rather than their stated issue. — connects to: Tax exemptions tied organized Christian resistance to IRS enforcement during desegregation — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 250; Segregationist schools’ tax-exemption fight catalyzed the New Right movement — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 251; Tax-code limits on political activity do not restrain religious advocacy groups — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 288 (+14 more)
• SEED: Angle: the Religious Right story as a case study in how single-issue mobilizations routinely conceal their true racial or economic engine — parallels the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ piece on disguise.

Related

• Abortion failed for years to mobilize evangelicals before the IRS ruling (similarity 0.91)
• The Religious Right needed a rallying issue besides racial segregation (similarity 0.91)
• Tax exemptions tied organized Christian resistance to IRS enforcement during desegregation (similarity 0.90)
• The 1978 ‘insignificant number of minority students’ IRS rule was Weyrich’s rallying issue (similarity 0.89)
• Segregationist schools’ tax-exemption fight catalyzed the New Right movement (similarity 0.88)
• The IRS’s Bob Jones revocation supplied Weyrich’s racial organizing issue (similarity 0.88)
• Forced desegregation of Christian schools, not abortion, sparked the Christian Right (similarity 0.88)
• A tax law ruling on segregation, not Roe, catalyzed the Religious Right (similarity 0.87)
• The Religious Right began as reaction to IRS desegregation of Christian schools. (similarity 0.86)
• The Religious Right adopted abortion only after racial segregation failed to rally voters (similarity 0.86)
• The Religious Right’s religious-freedom framing masked its defense of segregation (similarity 0.86)
• The Religious Right’s origins lay in defending racial segregation, not opposing abortion (similarity 0.85)
• The Religious Right’s foundation is racial exclusion, not abortion opposition. (similarity 0.84)
• Religious Right leaders reframed racism as religious freedom to mask self-interest (similarity 0.83)
• Politics, abortion, and school prayer failed for two decades to rouse evangelicals (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• The Religious Right began as reaction to IRS desegregation of Christian schools. #corroborates (1.00) — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 312
• Forced desegregation of Christian schools, not abortion, sparked the Christian Right #corroborates (1.00) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 530
• The Religious Right’s religious-freedom framing masked its defense of segregation #expands (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 112
• Private religious schools served as a vehicle for evading desegregation orders #expands (0.85) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 249
• The Religious Right needed a rallying issue besides racial segregation #expands (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 119
• The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade #expands (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 87
• The 1978 ‘insignificant number of minority students’ IRS rule was Weyrich’s rallying issue #qualifies (0.75)