Ronald Reagan and the Rise of the Radical Right
Religious and Secular Conservative Politics in America1960 and it's subsequent decades proved to be a remarkable time for the world in general, but very specifically for America. The first Roman Catholic president was elected; the birth control pill was introduced, and we confronted the question of nuclear war. We also saw the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement and the Women's Rights Movement as we learned first-hand and up close and personal about civil disobedience and political assassinations. During this period, the conservative right was an anti-communist movement that promoted conservatism in government; increased military spending; withdrawal from the United Nations and reducing government funded social programs. They viewed the student demonstrations against the Vietnam War as a communist plot, as were the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Rights Movement. Conservative Americans called the changes that we sought, and the questions that we asked, "un-American" and "un-patriotic". Eisenhower had disappointed the conservative right. William Buckley charged that he had done nothing for the Republican Party and nothing to develop a
Phillips and Viguerie founded the Conservative Caucus in 1974 and later helped start the Moral Majority with Weyrich and the Reverend Jerry Falwell. Together Phillips, Weyrich and Viguerie are the secular players who turned the religious right into a political force in the 1970s and 1980s by forming an unholy alliance with Christian extremists and leading attacks on abortion rights, women's rights and gay rights. Stein and Schreiber were conservative political operatives. Justice Department documents and several government sources believed that the preferential treatment Reagan received from MCA was a payoff for services rendered while Reagan was the president of the Screen Actor's Guild (109). They gave Reagan the job as host, program supervisor and occasional star of the prime time network show. His marriage to Democrat Wyman had ended in divorce in 1948, and he was now married to Nancy Davis, an actress and daughter of a Chicago physician Dr. Reagan remained on the board and on March 10, 1947 was appointed to complete the unfinished term of President for actor Robert Montgomery when Montgomery resigned to become a film producer. They seized on these issues and used them to organize and build political influence and power. Wade and legalized abortion through the first trimester of pregnancy. In 1972, The Equal Employment Opportunity Act and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act outlawing sex discrimination in most educational institutions were passed. It was also during this time that Reagan's politics were transformed from self-proclaimed liberal and a Democrat to a conservative, anti-communist Republican. In 1979, Ed McAteer of the Religious Roundtable urged Paul Weyrich and Phillips to engineer the Moral Majority and to draft the Rev. According to SAG by-laws, producers, even if they are primarily actors, are disqualified from serving on the SAG executive board.
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