Since 2016, understanding why and how white Evangelicals can support the occupant, who clearly embodies NO characteristics of Christianity, has been a mystery. He has no church affiliation, shows a total ignorance of Scripture and is utterly unaware of the basic tenets and principles of the Christian faith. How this lying, cheating, narcissistic buffoon managed to capture 81% of the white Evangelical vote is mind boggling.
As it turns out, there are a few moving pieces to this bizarre jig saw puzzle known as US politics right now. It starts with the persistent myth that the religious right coalesced around the issue of abortion in the aftermath of Roe v Wade.
In a 2014 article in Politico, Randall Balmer from Dartmouth University clarifies why this is a myth. It was a full six years after Roe v Wade when Paul Weyrich, a conservative leader, seized on the abortion issue for one reason-to deny Jimmy Carter a second term as president.
Why conservative Christians abandoned one of their own in favor of a divorced and remarried Ronald Reagan, who incidentally signed the most liberal abortion bill in the United States as governor of California, has nothing to do with the issue of abortion.
It has to do with a grab for political power that needed a rallying cry to organize what could potentially be a powerful voting bloc. Abortion was a more palatable rallying cry than their real agenda which was maintaining school segregation in the south.
The roots go back to 1964 when a group of African American parents in Holm County, Mississippi, sued the Treasury Department to prevent three new k-12 whites-only private academies from securing tax exempt status. They argued that their discriminatory policies prevented them from being classified as charitable institutions. In January of 1970 a preliminary injunction denied the segregated academies tax exempt status. Later that same year then-president Nixon ordered the IRS to deny tax exempt status to all segregated schools in the US.
Bob Jones University and Jerry Falwell’s Lynchburg Christian School continued their whites-only admission policy in defiance of the order to integrate. Christian schools argued that they accepted no government funds so the government could not dictate how they conducted business. They did, however, continue to enjoy tax exempt status and the perks that come with it. The passage of the Civil Rights Act changed all that.
In January of 1976 the IRS rescinded Bob Jones University’s tax exempt status because of their refusal to integrate. Though it seems unconnected, it was the beginning of galvanizing the Evangelical community around the issue of abortion. Abortion was a far more palatable rallying cry than maintaining segregation.
By the late 1970’s there was some unrest about Roe v. Wade and several pro-life candidates won elections in Minnesota and Iowa. The galvanizing year for the religious right was 1978. Frances Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop produced a series of films, “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” and aimed them directly at evangelical audiences. The five part film series is a direct blow levied at Roe v Wade complete with over the top images of dolls with fake blood on their faces and hyperbolic dialogue that demonizes women who choose abortion. C. Everett Koop later became the surgeon general.
When President Carter refused to sign a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion his political fate was sealed. Abortion became the rallying cry but maintaining segregation was the goal. The case of Bob Jones University reached the Supreme Court in 1982. The Reagan administration supported Bob Jones University; however, in the face of public outcry the administration changed their position. On May 24, 1983 the Court voted 8-1 against Bob Jones University. The lone dissenter was William Rehnquist who later became chief justice of the Supreme Court.
It is important to note that the religious right was never about biblical values, but about state’s rights which is code language for maintaining segregation. Opposition to abortion was never a moral issue, but a political one.
This helps to explain, in part, why 81% of the white evangelical vote went to the occupant. It isn’t about personal piety or demonstrable faith. It is about political expediency. The real goals of the Evangelical hang on the hook of abortion, but clearly have a root in racism and segregation. In addition, this joke of an administration is also reviving debate about LGBTQ rights and transgender people in the military.
The political expedience of the occupant is that he talks a pro-life agenda and spouts the conservative party line. No one would argue that the occupant is a practitioner of the faith; rather he defends the faith through his rhetoric and his political stances. In other words, he talks the talk but doesn’t walk the talk. Sarah Diefendort recently wrote, “Today, US white Evangelicals do not necessarily need political candidates who are going to carry their understanding of Christian values into personal actions but instead want candidates who will help them defend their identities and cultural influence.”
As long as the occupant continues to promulgate the conservative agenda, which at this point has coalesced around the issue of abortion, his political future is secure.
The Irreverent Reverend 