Quote:
Originally Posted by 70Chip
No American politician has ever spoken more eloquently against abortion than Ronald Reagan. He couldn't, for instance, ban partial birth abortion because the Democrats always controlled the house. But he said things that Bush 43 would never have dreamed of. As for gay marriage, it did not emerge as an issue until the late 1990s, so it's not really valid to use it as sign of the right's increasing influence. Also, to suggest that the religious right "came into it's own" in the 1990s is a misreading of history. It came into it's own as a movement in the 1970s. People who try to seperate Reagan from the evangelicals are revisionists.
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You're right. I was talking somewhat off the cuff and trying to remember events. I agree that the evangelical movement started in the 70's and was a powerful force then. I would suggest, however, that after Bush I, they reinvented themselves as a more grassroots organization and that it was then that they started to become more aggressive in formulating and pushing a legislative agenda. I haven't done a study, and I don't have a link but I remember reading some articles about how the religious right lost influence in Bush I and in the Clinton era and so began looking for ways to organize.