The Religious Right’s foundation is racial exclusion, not abortion opposition.

Evidence

And that is precisely the point. Leaders of the Religious Right can gussy up their movement by rallying behind such high-minded issues as opposition to abortion or (disingenuously) religious freedom, but that does not change the inconvenient fact that the founders of the movement in the 1970s organized to allow evangelical institutions to perpetuate their policies of racial exclusion. A building can feature all sorts of dazzling baubles and filigree, but if the timbers that make up its foundation are rotten, the entire structure is compromised. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 167

Categorization

• XREF: Uses the rotten-foundation metaphor to echo the book’s standing thesis that segregation is the movement’s charter principle. — connects to: The religious right’s founding coalition was initially indifferent to abortion. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 234; A tax law ruling on segregation, not Roe, catalyzed the Religious Right — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 100; The Religious Right adopted abortion only after racial segregation failed to rally voters — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 121 (+6 more)

Related

• The Religious Right’s origins lay in defending racial segregation, not opposing abortion (similarity 0.91)
• The Religious Right adopted abortion only after racial segregation failed to rally voters (similarity 0.90)
• The Religious Right needed a rallying issue besides racial segregation (similarity 0.87)
• The Religious Right’s religious-freedom framing masked its defense of segregation (similarity 0.86)
• The IRS’s challenge to segregated schools, not abortion, birthed the Religious Right (similarity 0.84)
• Religious Right leaders reframed racism as religious freedom to mask self-interest (similarity 0.84)
• A tax law ruling on segregation, not Roe, catalyzed the Religious Right (similarity 0.84)
• The abortion myth obscures the segregationist origins of evangelical activism. (similarity 0.83)
• Racism was integral but rendered invisible in the Christian Right’s origins (similarity 0.82)
• The religious right’s founding coalition was initially indifferent to abortion. (similarity 0.82)
• Forced desegregation of Christian schools, not abortion, sparked the Christian Right (similarity 0.82)
• The Religious Right’s abortion politics predate Roe and were chosen for strategic reasons (similarity 0.82)
• The Religious Right includes more than fundamentalists (similarity 0.82)
• The Religious Right’s origin in segregation explains its embrace of Trump. (similarity 0.82)
• Abortion failed for years to mobilize evangelicals before the IRS ruling (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• The Religious Right’s religious-freedom framing masked its defense of segregation #corroborates (0.90) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 112
• The Religious Right needed a rallying issue besides racial segregation #expands (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 119
• Religious Right leaders reframed racism as religious freedom to mask self-interest #corroborates (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 110
• The IRS’s challenge to segregated schools, not abortion, birthed the Religious Right #expands (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 23
• Forced desegregation of Christian schools, not abortion, sparked the Christian Right #expands (0.80) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 530