Historian's Pickaxe

Conventional wisdom has Roe v Wade playing the primary role in the rise of the religious right, yet that’s not the case. In the early seventies, most evangelicals considered abortion a non-issue, or, at best a Catholic one. The precipitating event was President Carter’s implementation of anti-segregation policies using the IRS as a weapon. Bob Jones University, an evangelical college,  was adamantly opposed to any kind of integration and when the IRS threatened to pull tax-exempt status from all segregated schools, it became a catalyst for action against the federal government and their “control of private education.”

At a conference of  conservative religious groups in 1990, when the standard line was outlined in a speech by someone, “[Paul} Weyrich forcefully disputed that assumption, recounting that ever since Barry Goldwater’s run for the presidency in 1964, he had been trying to enlist evangelicals in conservative political causes, but it was the tax exemption for religious schools that finally caught the attention of evangelical leaders. Abortion, he said, had nothing to do with it.”  It was Green v Connally, and Coit v Green, both 1971 decisions, not Roe v Wade that provided a catalyst to the movement. Both of them affirmed  that tax exempt status could not be granted to segregated schools, of which there were still many even 15 years after Brown v Board of education that struck down separate but equal schools.

In fact, Southern Baptists, hardly pastions of liberalism, were promoting loosening up restrictions on abortion. “Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, during the summer of 1971, the messengers (delegates) to the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution that stated, ‘we call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” They reaffirmed that position in 1974, the year after the Roe decision.**

W.A. Criswell, former president of the Southern Baptists and one of the most famous fundamentalists of the twentieth century said, in 1973, “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person,” and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.” ***

Reaction to the IRS dedcision, particularly the demand that schools have a quota of minorities, was swift and angry. ““Jerome Kurtz [IRS Commissioner] has done more to bring Christians together than any man since the Apostle Paul.” Numerous organizations were from, Christian coalitions, to fight this intrusion into the Christian school subculture that feared inegration. “Evangelical leaders, prodded by Weyrich, chose to interpret the IRS ruling against segregationist schools as an assault on the integrity and the sanctity of the evangelical subculture, ignoring the fact that exemption from taxes is itself a form of public subsidy. And that is what prompted them to action and to organize into a political movement. “

The problem they faced was adding another issue that would engage a broader segment of society than just tax exemption. The elections of 1978 provided a clue. Pro-life advocates (primarily Catholics) had targeted Dick Clark in Iowa, considered a shoe-in for reelection. He was defeated by a pro-life candidate to the surprise of everyone following a vigorous anti-Clark campaign that distributed thousands of leaflets in church parking lots just before the election. Analysts agreed abortion made the difference.

The defeat of Clark and the triple win for Republicans in Minnesota in 1978 convinced Weyrich that abortion was a winning issue for conservatives.  Helped by Frances Schaefer, a Presbyterian minister and activist who had been liaising with Catholic bishops, abortion became a rallying cry on the right.  Ironically, it hurt Jimmy Carter, who had a more consistent anti-abortion belief than Reagan, but even though Carter had nothing to do with the IRS actions, he became associated with it as president dooming his presidency. Reagan became the darling of the right and the rest is history.

*The Historian's Pickaxe by Randall Balmer See also Randall Balmer’s (Historian of Religion) book, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America (2006)

**And again in 1976, if a bit more measured:  calling on “Southern Baptists and all citizens of the nation to work to change those attitudes and conditions which encourage many people to turn to abortion as a means of birth control”; but it also affirmed “our conviction about the limited role of government in dealing with matters relating to abortion, and support the right of expectant mothers to the full range of medical services and personal counseling for the preservation of life and health.” Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1976 (Nashville, Tenn.: Executive Committee, Southern Baptist Convention, 1976), 58.  Precisely the opposite of the position being taken by current radical anti abortionists.

*** Quoted in Christianity Today, March 2, 1973

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