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It’s the Church and State, Stupid

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As a follow-up to my post about pro-choice politics and populism, Matt provides some extremely useful data:

People were asked what they think about “making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion.” That, it seems to me, is a good test of whether or not there really is some huge group of moderates out there who don’t support hardcore pro-life positions but are turned off by Democratic hostility to any kind of new restrictions on reproductive rights. 55 percent say they would be opposed to making it more difficult, and just 36 percent say they favor it. Making it harder to get an abortion attracts support from all three Republican opinion blocs, but from none of the Democratic ones (even the “Conservative Democrats” group, picked out by its higher level of religiosity, hostility to gay rights, and support for a more nationalistic foreign policy, is opposed 51-37) and neither of the swing groups.

Interestingly, “the Christian conservative movement” is way more popular than the issue it’s primarily identified with in the media. Of those polled, 41 percent have a favorable view and 34 percent an unfavorable view. All of the Republican blocs, even the primarily pro-business “enterprisers,” are favorable. Both of the swing groups are net favorable, though the upscale “upbeats” only by a small margin. And even one of the Democratic groups likes the Christian conservative movement. Looking at issues to explain this, the actual topics where liberals seem to be out-of-step with most voters aren’t abortion at all. Rather, displaying the Ten Commandments on government buildings turns out to have overwhelming public support — 74 to 22, including huge majorities among two of the Democratic blocs. Likewise, a majority of voters (57 to 33) think we should be teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools and both swing groups agree.

As I noted in a recent debate at Matt’s non-Big Media site, this is also consistent with the history of the development of the New Right. When you look at the history, it’s simply implausible that it was abortion–which didn’t emerge as a major issue until 1967–that was the catalyst for modern movement conservatives, who of course largely took over the Republican Party in 1964. E ven at the level of hostility to the Supreme Court, the claim that Roe is the source of the New Right’s ability to mobilize is ahistorical nonsense. For example, the Supreme Court was a much more important issue for Nixon in ’68 and ’72 than it was for Bush (who barely mentioned it.) You may recall the “Impeach Earl Warren” billboards; some of you may also know that Earl Warren had, you know, been off the court for 4 terms before Roe v. Wade was decided. And this is because it was the Court’s segregation, school prayer, and criminal procedure cases that produced the biggest backlash. The latter two were (unlike Roe) legitimately countermajoritarian, and played a major role in mobilizing evangelicals. As Lucas Powe noted in his terrific book The Warren Court and American Politics about the major school prayer case Engel v. Vitale:

The Court received more mail complaining about Engle than any other case, and a later study found more widespread opposition to Engle than any other case…Warren noticed what he believed to be an absurd headline in a newspaper: “Court Outlaws Good.”

[…]

The religious comment was predictably split, and, as with the press, there was a shrillness to those who thought the decision wrong. Spokesman for the Catholic Church…were especially vehement. The Jesuit weekly America characterized the decision as ‘asinine,” ‘stupid,’ ‘doctrinaire,’ and ‘unrealistic.’…Southern Protestants agreed. The Reverend Billy Graham was ‘shocked and disappointed..’…The New York Times reported that congressmen ‘questioned the justices’ honesty and patriotism.'” (187-8)

So, both currently and historically, there’s simply no evidence that abortion was the key catalyst for cultural conservative mobilization, or that selling out on abortion (even if only to support asinine regulations that will restrict access and humiliate women seeking abortions) will significantly demobilize cultural conservatives. Church and state issues are at least as important, and have far fewer political benefits for progressives than, supporting abortion rights. What I don’t understand is why so many progressives believe otherwise. Is it the stigmatization of “women’s issues?” The fact that educated progressives can grasp opposition to abortion more easily than opposition to teaching evolution or enforcing the secular constitution? Simple ignorance of the data? It’s an honest question; I don’t know the answer. But I do know that this piece of conventional wisdom is utterly false.

UPDATE: Welcome Pandagon readers! If you’re interested in more detail on the countermobilization question, you can see here and here.

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