Chapter 4 “Political” Pro-Abstinence Discourses: The Heritage Foundation and Rebecca Hagelin

The Heritage Foundation was created in 1973, by a team of young conservatives, led by Paul Weyrich and Ed Feulner. It was the financial support of Joseph Coors, president of Coors Beers, that enabled them to realise the project they had had in mind for several years. Later financial supporters would also include prominent firms like “Amway, Chase Manhattan, Dow Chemical, General Motors, Loctite, Milliken, Mobil, Pfizer, Sears Roebuck, and SmithKline.”1 The aim of this new political research organization, or “think-tank”2 was, according to Weyrich, to

provide some intellectual underpinnings for some members of Congress who wanted to articulate a different approach from the Nixon administration. We did not regard the Nixon administration as conservative on many issues and we wanted to provide an alternative course. There were any number of members of Congress who were interested in taking that alternative course; they just didn’t have the staff and the intellectual back-up to make that happen.3

It was this staff and “intellectual back-up” that the Heritage Foundation wanted to provide. Producing research and policy recommendations in a format that could be easily digested by congressmen and the media was to be the main function of the foundation. In 1979, Heritage, close to Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, supported Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign. During Reagan’s two consecutive terms in office the think-tank had its heyday. Its budget consistently increased as well as the number of its employees, and nine years after its founding it could boast an annual budget of $7 million. Today, the Heritage Foundation is one of the most prominent right wing think-tanks in Washington. Its permanent research team writes on a very wide array of topics like agriculture, crime, economy, education, energy and environment, family and marriage, welfare, internet and technology, political philosophy, religion and civil society, NATO, foreign policy, and the study of the economies of the various continents. To promote its ideas, the Heritage Foundation organises conferences, often featuring members of Congress or of the government. It also uses its extensive mailing list and internet website to reach its donors and supporters. One of the foundation’s major projects was, and still is the Mandate for Leadership. This series of books of more than 3,000 pages, first published in 1980, then in 1984, 2000 48 “Political” Pro-Abstinence Discourses ______and 2005, gathers the political recommendations of the researchers of the Heritage Foundation to the Republican governments taking office. According to the foundation’s website, President Reagan

gave copies [of Mandate for Leadership] to every member of his Cabinet. The result: Nearly two-thirds of ‘Mandate’s’ 2,000 recommendations were adopted or attempted by the Reagan administration.4

Though the Heritage Foundation now presents its relationship to the Reagan administration in very positive terms, the impact of his presidency was questioned by numerous conservatives. Many of them felt that the president had only paid lip service to issues like school prayer, abortion and family values. They also noticed that Ronald Reagan had actually appointed very few social conservatives to his administration. Yet, one of the important impact of the Reagan presidency for the Heritage Foundation in particular and the Religious Right in general was not what he actually accomplished, but rather the way he brought conservative Christian agendas in the national political discourse. In the case of the Heritage Foundation those agendas are articulated as follows:

To promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Heritage analysts believe that: The private sector can be depended upon to make better economic decisions than the public sector in ninety-nine out of one hundred cases. Government serves the governed best when it is limited. Individuals need freedom to exercise responsibility. Good men and women produce a good society rather than the reverse. Peace is best protected through military strength. America should not hesitate to use its power and influence to shape a world friendly to American interests and values.5

As explained by Lee Edwards, adjunct professor of politics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and Heritage Distinguished Fellow, in his book The Power of Ideas: The Heritage at 25 Years,

the phrase “traditional American values” was not formally added to Heritage’s mission statement until 1993. As a matter of policy, the foundation decided in the late 1970s to