How successful were the Religious Right in achieving their aims 1981 to 1992?

Question 1

P1
P2
P3

Answer 1

YES- DRUG USE
NO- HOMOSEXUALITY/ aids
NO-ABORTION

Question 2

P1

Answer 2

E1- NANCY reagan
- anti-drugs ‘Just Say No’ campaign. She obtained a great deal of media coverage
- First Lady, Nancy Reagan visited several treatment centres- Board of Directors for the National Federation of Parents for a Drug Free Youth.
IMPACT= reduction in illegal drug use by the USA’s youth. -
-Cocaine use by high school students (14-18 year olds) dropped by 1/3 from 6.2% in 1986 to 4.3% in 1987.
-1988 Congress passed the Drug-Free Workplace Act,

=efforts were clearly in line with the aims and aspirations of the Religious Right.

E2- BUSH RESPONSE

By 1990, federal + state expenditure on the enforcement of drug laws =$10 billion per annum.

The federal government’s war on drugs focussed upon eradicating foreign supplies at source, halting their importation and arresting dealers and users

-750,000 Americans were charged each year with the violation of drug laws (mostly marijuana).

Question 3

P2 EVIDENCE

Answer 3

Religious Right’s opposition to homosexuality was fuelled by the rise of AIDS in the early 1980s as a higher proportion of gay men contracted the condition. Because AIDS mostly struck male homosexuals and intravenous drug users (taking drugs by injection), Middle America associated it with immorality.

E1-REAGAN

-

• 1987, - newly established ACT UP
  2. followed up the first gay pride parade in New York City with a demonstration =demanded equal rights and more research into AIDS.
• Rock Hudson died from AIDS in October 1985, Reagan asked Surgeon-General Koop for a report on the problem.
• called for sex education in schools, even at elementary level.

E1- BUSH- as the Indiana teenager Ran White

• haemophiliac who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion
• national spokesperson of AIDS sufferers
• helped changed public perceptions of AID
• 1990, Congress passed the Ryan White Care Act.
• granted $220 million to help victims on a so-called ‘gay plague

-992, ACT-UP got $2 billion from Congress for research,

Question 4

P3 EVDENCE

Answer 4

P1- REAGAN AND BUSH- APPOINT PRO CHOICER

• In 1981, President Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court, =upset the Religious Right = sympathy toward women in need of abortions.
• Following Justice William Brennan’s retirement from the Supreme Court in 1990, the Religious Right hoped that President Bush would nominate a known pro-lifer, =nominated David Souter, whose views on abortion were unknown.

E2- BUSH IMPACT

• Webster v Reproductive Services of Missouri (1989), = Supreme Court ruled that Missouri could deny women access to public abortion facilities.
  =After Webster, only 3 states denied women access to public abortion facilities.

-Roe vs Wade ruling was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in a 1992 ruling that abortion was constitutional (Planned Parenthood vs Casey).
=disappointed the Bush administration,

Democratic Congress refused to agree to such an amendment. (ANTI ABORTION AMMENDMENT)