Editing Christian right (section)

===Early history and rise, 1970s-1980s===
The movement that would become the religious right had much of its origin in the work and activism of conservative operative [[Paul Weyrich]], who had foreseen the potential to organize evangelicals and conservative Catholics into a political force in the early 1960s and had reportedly started trying to do so during the [[1964 United States presidential election]]. Weyrich tried a number of wedge issues throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, including [[United States anti-abortion movement|abortion]], [[opposition to pornography|pornography]], the proposed [[Equal Rights Amendment]], and [[School prayer in the United States|school prayer]], without success.<ref name="Bad Faith"/><ref name="Pickaxe"/> Weyrich was not successful until the legality of [[segregation academy|segregation academies]] began to be challenged in the early 1970s. In 1970, the [[Internal Revenue Service]] adopted a policy of rescinding the tax-exempt status of private schools that did not admit African Americans, and the following year, the Supreme Court ruled in ''[[Coit v. Green]]'' that organizations that voluntarily practice racial discrimination are not eligible for tax exemption.<ref>{{cite court |litigants=Green v. Connally |litigants-force-plain= |vol=330 |reporter=F. Supp.|opinion=1150 |pinpoint= |court=U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia|date=June 30, 1971 |url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/330/1150/2126265/ |quote= |postscript= }}</ref> The origin of this case was a legal challenge to the tax-exempt status of a group of segregation academies in [[Holmes County, Mississippi]].<ref name="Bad Faith"/><ref name="Pickaxe"/> Many of the schools targeted by these rulings were church-sponsored, and these actions reportedly caught the attention of a number of evangelical leaders, including [[Jerry Falwell]]. The largest educational institution targeted by the IRS was [[Bob Jones University]], which lost its tax exemption in 1976 due to its policy prohibiting interracial dating. This action reportedly further caught the ire of evangelical leaders, many of whom believed that the IRS was overstepping its legal authority.<ref name="ippavyui">{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5502785|title=Evangelical: Religious Right Has Distorted the Faith|date=June 23, 2006|work=NPR|author=Linda Wertheimer|access-date=January 31, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070202210127/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5502785|archive-date=February 2, 2007|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Perry |first=Samuel L. |last2=Braunstein |first2=Ruth |last3=Gorski |first3=Philip S. |last4=Grubbs |first4=Joshua B. |date=March 2022 |title=Historical Fundamentalism? Christian Nationalism and Ignorance About Religion in American Political History |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.12760 |journal=[[Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion]] |volume=61 |issue=1 |pages=24 |doi=10.1111/jssr.12760 |issn=0021-8294}}</ref> Weyrich also sought to frame the IRS crackdown on segregation academics as an issue of government intrusion and attacks on religious freedom, effectively diverting attention from the racial aspect of the issue.<ref name="Bad Faith"/><ref name="politico522">{{cite news |last=Balmer |first=Randall |date=May 10, 2022 |title=The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth|url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480 |work=Politico |access-date=August 10, 2022}}</ref>

In the [[1976 United States presidential election|1976 Presidential election]], [[Jimmy Carter]], who described himself as an evangelical and a [[born again|born-again Christian]], received the support of a majority of American evangelicals and the emerging Christian right largely because of his much-acclaimed religious conversion. However, the issue of segregation academies carried over into Carter's presidency, and in 1978, the IRS proposed a new rule that would have revoked the tax exemption of private schools based on their racial demographic composition relative to that of their respective communities. While this rule never went into effect, it provoked fierce backlash and protests from evangelical leaders and church congregants alike, with many believing it to be an attack on non-discriminatory institutions and religious freedom. The IRS reportedly received over 150,000 letters in opposition to this proposal, mostly from Christians.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Pine |first1=Art |title=IRS Softens Proposal Aimed At 'Segregation Academies' |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/02/10/irs-softens-proposal-aimed-at-segregation-academies/127aa5a4-5506-43e0-9da3-72ee8da321b3/ |access-date=January 8, 2025 |work=The Washington Post |date=February 9, 1979}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Kurlander |first=David |date=February 17, 2022 |title='We Want Them Burned': The 1978 IRS Controversy Over Discriminatory Schools |url=https://cafe.com/article/we-want-them-burned-the-1978-irs-controversy-over-discriminatory-schools/ |work=Cafe.com |location= |publisher=[[Vox Media]] |access-date=January 8, 2025}}</ref> This action reportedly encouraged many white evangelicals to become politically active for the first time, and turned them against Jimmy Carter.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lehmann |first1=Chris |title=How Jimmy Carter Lost Evangelical Christians to the Right |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/jimmy-carter-evangelical-christianity/ |access-date=January 8, 2025 |work=The Nation |date=December 30, 2024}}</ref> Weyrich later stated that what got evangelicals involved in politics was "Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation",<ref>{{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=William Curtis |title=With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America |date=1996 |publisher=Broadway Books |location=New York City |isbn=9780553067491 |page=173 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/With_God_on_Our_Side/cuXPDuEO6BkC?hl |access-date=January 8, 2025 |via=Google Books}}</ref> and [[Richard Viguerie]] said that the 1978 IRS action "kicked a sleeping dog."<ref name="Pickaxe">{{cite web |last1=Balmer |first1=Randall |title=The Historian's Pickaxe: Uncovering the Racist Origins of the Religious Right |url=https://amc.sas.upenn.edu/sites/www.sas.upenn.edu.andrea-mitchell-center/files/Balmer%20-%20Historian's%20Pickaxe.pdf |website=The Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy |publisher=University of Pennsylvania |access-date=January 8, 2025 |date=September 24, 2021}}</ref> Others, including religious right leader [[Ed Dobson]] and conservative activist [[Grover Norquist]] have affirmed this as the beginnings of the religious right.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Cromartie |editor1-first=Michael |title=No Longer Exiles: The Religious New Right in American Politics |date=1992 |publisher=[[Ethics and Public Policy Center]] |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=9780896331723 |page=52 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/No_Longer_Exiles/rbnYAAAAMAAJ?hl |access-date=January 8, 2025 |via=Google Books |quote="Edward G. Dobson: "The Religious New Right did not start because of a concern about abortion. I want to go back and re-emphasize that. I sat in the non-smoke-filled back room with the Moral Majority, and I frankly do not remember abortion being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something.""}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Gilgoff |first1=Dan |title=Exclusive: Grover Norquist Gives Religious Conservatives Tough Love |url=https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/god-and-country/2009/06/11/exclusive-grover-norquist-gives-religious-conservatives-tough-love#read_more |access-date=January 8, 2025 |work=U.S. News & World Report |date=June 11, 2009 |quote="The religious right did not get started in 1962 with prayer in school. And it didn't get started in '73 with Roe v. Wade. It started in '77 or '78 with the Carter administration's attack on Christian schools and Christian radio stations [pressing for allegedly segregated Christian organizations to lose their tax-exempt status]. That's where all of the organization flowed out of. It was complete self-defense."}}</ref>

Around the same time, Weyrich realized that support for segregation academies was not viable and began to look for other issues. The unexpected success of predominantly Catholic anti-abortion activists in the [[1978 United States elections|1978 midterms]] convinced Weyrich that opposition to abortion might work as a wedge issue to keep evangelicals politically mobilized.<ref name="Bad Faith"/><ref name="Pickaxe"/> He favored the issue because it could be framed in the context of [[family values]] and be used to claim moral superiority, as well as attack [[second-wave feminism]].<ref name="ABCAU"/><ref>{{cite news |title=How abortion became a mobilizing issue among the religious right |url=https://www.npr.org/2022/05/08/1097514184/how-abortion-became-a-mobilizing-issue-among-the-religious-right |access-date=January 8, 2025 |work=NPR |date=May 8, 2022 |location=Washington, D. C.}}</ref> Prior to this time, the Catholic Church was the only Christian denomination that was staunchly anti-abortion, with many Protestant and evangelical denominations, including the [[Southern Baptist Convention]], either supporting the legalization of the procedure in some circumstances, or not taking a stance on the issue. The following year, filmmaker [[Frank Schaeffer]] produced a series of anti-abortion films titled ''Whatever Happened to the Human Race?'', starring his father, evangelist [[Francis Schaeffer]] and pediatric surgeon [[C. Everett Koop|Dr. C. Everett Koop]].<ref name="Bad Faith"/><ref name="politico522"/> That same year, abortion was reportedly suggested as a wedge issue during a conference call between a number of religious right leaders, although many were still skeptical of its ability to mobilize evangelicals.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Balmer |first1=Randall |title=There's a straight line from US racial segregation to the anti-abortion movement |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/08/abortion-us-religious-right-racial-segregation |access-date=January 8, 2025 |work=The Guardian |date=September 8, 2021}}</ref> Schaeffer's films were also reportedly met with tepid reception during a tour in which they were shown at numerous churches around the United States, and leaders like Jerry Falwell were initially hesitant to utilize abortion, believing that its stereotype amongst evangelicals as a "Catholic issue" would hinder its ability to politically mobilize them.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Gross |first1=Terry |title=Pro-Life — And In Favor Of Keeping Abortion Legal |url=https://www.npr.org/transcripts/97998654 |access-date=January 8, 2025 |work=NPR |date=December 9, 2008 |location=Washington, D. C.}}</ref> It was not until the early 1980s that abortion would become in effect the signature wedge issue of the religious right, and conservative evangelicals began joining the anti-abortion movement in large numbers.<ref name = "Catholic"/><ref name = "CC">{{cite book|title=Crisis of Conservatism?: The Republican Party, the Conservative Movement, and American Politics After Bush|author1=Joel D. Aberbach |author2=Gillian Peele |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}</ref><ref name = "RCC">{{cite book|title=Catholics and Politics: the Dynamic Tension between Faith and Power|quote=To summarize, in the Republican Party, many Catholic activists held conservative positions on key issues emphasized by Christian Right leaders, and they said that they supported the political activities of some Christian Right candidates.|author1=Kristin E. Heyer |author2=Mark J. Rozell |author3=Michael A. Genovese |publisher=[[Georgetown University Press]]}}</ref>

In 1979, the [[Moral Majority]], widely considered the first religious right organization, was founded by Falwell, Weyrich, and other associates and began emphasizing such issues as abortion, pornography, gay rights, and opposition to the [[Equal Rights Amendment]], and a perceived moral decline of the United States, and played a major role in mobilizing evangelicals to support [[Ronald Reagan]] in the [[1980 United States presidential election]].<ref name=Reinhard /><ref>Ellis, Blake A. "An Alternative Politics: Texas Baptists and the Rise of the Christian Right, 1975–1985." ''The Southwestern Historical Quarterly'', vol. 112, no. 4, 2009, pp. 361–86. {{jstor|30242432}} Retrieved May 5, 2023.</ref> In response to the rise of the Christian right, the 1980 Republican Party platform assumed a number of its positions, including the resumption of public school prayer. While the platform also opposed abortion, leaned towards restricting taxpayer funding for abortions, and sought a constitutional amendment bestowing [[Beginning of human personhood|personhood to fetuses]], it also acknowledged the fact that many Americans, including Republicans, were divided on the issue.<ref name="hartsem" />{{sfn|Williams|2010|pages=1, 2}}<ref name="gop1980">{{Cite web|url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25844|title=Republican Party Platforms: Republican Party Platform of 1980|access-date=December 19, 2013|archive-date=December 19, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219225439/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25844|url-status=dead}}</ref> At this time, both major political parties were divided internally on abortion rights, and it was not until the late 1980s that abortion came to be viewed as a partisan issue.<ref name="ABCAU">{{cite news |last1=Clark |first1=Emily |title=Why is America so divided on abortion? Because a key conservative player planned it that way |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-16/why-america-is-so-divided-on-abortion-and-the-men-who-planned-it/101188994 |access-date=January 8, 2025 |work=[[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] |date=July 15, 2022}}</ref> Over the next two decades, Christian rightist citizens became more politically active in a time period labeled the [[New Christian Right]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cook |first1=Kimberly J. |first2=Chris |last2=Powell |title=Christianity and Punitive Mentalities: A Qualitative Study |journal=Crime, Law and Social Change |volume=39 |issue=1 |year=2003 |pages=69–89 |doi=10.1023/A:1022487430900 |s2cid=142654351 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Miller |first=Patricia |date=December 12, 2016 |title=Meet the New Christian Right, Same as the Old Christian Right |url=http://religiondispatches.org/meet-the-new-christian-right-same-as-the-old-christian-right/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170203080843/http://religiondispatches.org/meet-the-new-christian-right-same-as-the-old-christian-right/ |archive-date=February 3, 2017 |access-date=February 2, 2017 |work=[[Religion Dispatches]] |language=en}}</ref> In addition to the Moral Majority (which dissolved in the late 1980s), the Christian right was associated with new organizations throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including the [[Christian Coalition of America]], [[Focus on the Family]], the [[Alliance Defending Freedom]], the [[Family Research Council]], and the [[American Center for Law & Justice]].<ref name="Himmelstein" /><ref name="Martin1996a" /><ref name="Lehmann2023">{{cite web |last1=Lehmann |first1=Chris |title=The Vanguard Party of the Christian Right |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/society/alliance-defending-freedom/ |publisher=[[The Nation]] |access-date=29 July 2024 |date=5 October 2023}}</ref>