Jimmy Carter and the Religious Right

I don't need to tell readers the death of Jimmy Carter has brought an avalanche of media attention. So much of it is not interesting to me--was he a successful President, why was he defeated, what did he do after his Presidency, etc.  I was so invested in him these issues are old ground. I chatted briefly with him and my wife and I spent several hours in Plains, GA and the Carter Center a few years ago. What is interesting ground to replough is his religion and his devotion to it.

I've restated several times that Protestants were in favor of abortion rights prior to the Roe decision decades ago making it legal. This included Carter's church, the Southern Baptist Convention. Then his denomination changed its position, but Carter did not. He grew up in the rural countryside surrounded by black families and their children. They were his playmates, welcomed to the Carter home by his mother. 

Later, when he took over the family's business of buying and processing peanuts, there were wagons of peanuts lined up for weighing and dumping. A white farmer crowded in front of a black woman. Carter came out of his office to correct this. There was no money in it for him. 

Several articles point out leaders of the religious right began public criticism of him after he became President. Reagan began using language of the religious right. The Reagans were not regular church goers but spent many Sunday mornings at the home of a gay couple who hosted elaborate Sunday brunches for the Hollywood establishment. It's safe to say the Carters were much more religious than the Reagans but it did not matter. Reagan told a better story. 

My wife and I visited and are members of the Carter Center in Atlanta. It appears to be an institution that will live on long into the future. It monitors elections in countries around to world and is needed to evaluate the legitimacy of election outcomes. 

Carter was not what we could call a skilled politician. Yet, he had an uncanny ability to "do the right thing."