The Religious Right’s origins lay in defending racial segregation, not opposing abortion

Evidence

Given Carter’s political troubles, the defection of evangelicals may or may not have been decisive. But it is certainly true that evangelicals, having helped propel Carter to the White House four years earlier, turned dramatically against him, their fellow evangelical, during the course of his presidency. And the catalyst for their political activism was not, as often claimed, opposition to abortion. Although abortion had begun to emerge as a rallying cry late in the 1980 campaign, the real roots of the Religious Right lay not in the defense of a fetus but in the defense of racial segregation. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 140

Categorization

• XREF: Extends the argument developed through earlier chapters on IRS actions against segregated Christian schools; see the whole book’s thesis. — connects to: The religious right’s founding coalition was initially indifferent to abortion. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 234; Abortion opposition once spanned both parties and was not partisan — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 270; The Religious Right’s religious-freedom framing masked its defense of segregation — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 112 (+10 more)
• ADDENDUM: Connects to the parallel between moral-crusade narratives and how sacrificial/scapegoating rhetoric works; related to the author’s broader pattern of exposing the real driver under a surface moral cause.

Related

• Evangelicals’ turn against Carter was rooted in racial segregation defense, not abortion (similarity 0.92)
• The Religious Right’s foundation is racial exclusion, not abortion opposition. (similarity 0.91)
• The Religious Right adopted abortion only after racial segregation failed to rally voters (similarity 0.90)
• The Religious Right’s origin in segregation explains its embrace of Trump. (similarity 0.88)
• The abortion myth obscures the segregationist origins of evangelical activism. (similarity 0.88)
• Forced desegregation of Christian schools, not abortion, sparked the Christian Right (similarity 0.86)
• The Religious Right needed a rallying issue besides racial segregation (similarity 0.86)
• The Religious Right’s religious-freedom framing masked its defense of segregation (similarity 0.86)
• A tax law ruling on segregation, not Roe, catalyzed the Religious Right (similarity 0.86)
• The IRS’s challenge to segregated schools, not abortion, birthed the Religious Right (similarity 0.85)
• The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade (similarity 0.85)
• Evangelicals conspired against Carter’s reelection secretly (similarity 0.85)
• IRS regulations topped evangelicals’ 1979 grievances against Carter while abortion went unmentioned (similarity 0.85)
• Some evangelicals sincerely oppose abortion regardless of their movement’s origins (similarity 0.84)
• The Religious Right includes more than fundamentalists (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• The Religious Right’s foundation is racial exclusion, not abortion opposition. #corroborates (0.98) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 167
• Forced desegregation of Christian schools, not abortion, sparked the Christian Right #exemplifies (0.90) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 530
• Racism was integral but rendered invisible in the Christian Right’s origins #expands (0.90) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 533
• Evangelicals’ turn against Carter was rooted in racial segregation defense, not abortion #exemplifies (0.90) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 138
• The Religious Right’s origin in segregation explains its embrace of Trump. #expands (0.90) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 163
• The IRS’s challenge to segregated schools, not abortion, birthed the Religious Right #exemplifies (0.88) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 23
• The Religious Right needed a rallying issue besides racial segregation #expands (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 119