During the rise of the modern religious right in the 1970s and 1980s, nationally prominent evangelical women played integral roles in shaping the priorities of this movement and mobilizing its supporters. In particular, they helped to formulate, articulate, and defend the traditionalist politics of gender and family that in turn made it easy to downplay the importance of their leadership roles. This book begins by examining the lives and work of four well-known women—evangelical marriage advice author Marabel Morgan, singer and anti-gay-rights activist Anita Bryant, author and political lobbyist Beverly LaHaye, and televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. It examines their impact on the rise of the modern religious right and on the development of a national evangelical subculture, contributed to the rise of the New Christian Right by disseminating conservative political ideas in purportedly apolitical spaces. The final chapter underscores the ongoing significance of this history, through an analysis of Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential candidacy in 2008 and Michele Bachmann’s presidential bid in 2012. This chapter highlights the legacies of an earlier generation of conservative evangelical women who made these campaigns possible and who continue to impact our national conversations about gender, family, and sex.
Donald Trump, the Christian Right and COVID-19: The Politics of Religious Freedom