The religious right’s founding coalition was initially indifferent to abortion.

Evidence

In the late 1970s a curious combination of religious and political activists assembled to ponder the strategy of a new political movement, sometimes by letter or phone, and sometimes in conference rooms or at a hotel in Lynchburg, Virginia. Some of the more vocal members of the group included Southern Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell; conservative activists Ed McAteer and Paul Weyrich; Nixon appointee Howard Phillips; attorney Alan P. Dye; and Robert J. Billings, an educator and organizer who would later serve as Ronald Reagan’s liaison to the Christian right. … This was an angry group of men. “We are radicals who want to change the existing power structure. We are not conservatives in the sense that conservative means accepting the status quo,” Paul Weyrich said. “We want change—we are the forces of change.” They were angry at liberals, who threatened to undermine national security with their unforgivable softness on communism; they were angry at the establishment conservatives, the Rockefeller Republicans, for siding with the liberals and taking down their hero, Barry Goldwater; they were angry about the rising tide of feminism, which they saw as a menace to the social order; and about the civil rights movement and the danger it posed to segregation, especially in education. One thing that they were not particularly angry about, at least at the start of their discussions, was the matter of abortion rights. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 234

Categorization

• QUESTION: How exactly did abortion rise to the center of this coalition’s agenda after starting out absent from it?
• XREF: Connects to the standard historical narrative in which the religious right’s abortion focus was a later strategic acquisition rather than an original conviction. — connects to: Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 160; Anti-abortion politics brokered the Protestant-Catholic right-wing alliance. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 37; The New Right founders launched with grievances unrelated to abortion — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 234 (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• The New Right founders launched with grievances unrelated to abortion #corroborates (0.92) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 234
• Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed #corroborates (0.90) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 160
• Anti-abortion was chosen after other rallying issues were rejected #corroborates (0.88) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 254
• Proposed rallying issues for the Religious Right included gay rights before abortion #corroborates (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 120
• The Religious Right’s abortion politics predate Roe and were chosen for strategic reasons #contradicts (0.85) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 222
• The Religious Right’s founding narrative claims Roe v. Wade roused evangelicals from political passivity #complicates (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 89
• The Religious Right strategists first favored gay rights over abortion as a mobilizing issue #corroborates (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 122
• The Religious Right needed a rallying issue besides racial segregation #corroborates (0.82) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 119
• Anti-abortion politics brokered the Protestant-Catholic right-wing alliance. #corroborates (0.80) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 37
• The Religious Right adopted abortion only after racial segregation failed to rally voters #corroborates (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 121
• Internal Religious Right correspondence celebrated abortion as an effective organizing issue #contradicts (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 130
• The Religious Right’s origins lay in defending racial segregation, not opposing abortion #corroborates (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 140
• The Religious Right began as reaction to IRS desegregation of Christian schools. #corroborates (0.80) — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 312
• Abortion was adopted as a rallying issue because it could unite disparate cultural conservatives #corroborates (0.78) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 258
• Early abortion politics pitted Catholic lobbyists against Protestant Republicans, not secular against religious #corroborates (0.75) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 265