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The real origins of the Religious Right? Scholar claims it was segregation, not abortion

[additional-authors]
June 4, 2014

In a surprising and discomforting article for “>They're not.) Yet, there are no religious arguments for promoting segregation or opposing integration.

However, the historical record doesn't appear as clear as Balmer claims. At least not based on the evidence he presents in his article. Balmer's argument generally is that Americans weren't that riled up about abortion, thus the founders of the Religious Right probably weren't either; instead, they were concerned about busing, but they couldn't galvanize a movement on the platform of segregation so they eventually latched on to abortion.

Unless we assume Bob Jones University to be key to the founding of the Religious Right (and that its segregationist policies were prioritized over the lack of such policies at the college started by Religious Right founder Jerry Falwell), that's a lot of inference without any smoking gun correspondence or statements.

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