That’s an excellent question, given opposition to women’s rights, including reproductive rights, is driven largely by Evangelical Christian voters. In a sense, this is just the tip of the iceberg for them.

White Evangelical churches are absolutist patriarchal institutions. Men wield almost all power, and women wield almost none. You can have a board of trustees set up that looks over the finances of the church, even handling complicated investment matters, and if the church membership included a woman who was an investment banker or an accountant, she would not be allowed to sit on that board. Church leadership positions, with very rare exception, are reserved exclusively for men.

White Evangelical women are conditioned from the time they’re small girls to accept their subservient role. They are taught that it’s Biblical and that it’s necessary for being a good Christian.

White Evangelical men and women defend this sort of handmaiden status by claiming men and women serve complementary rather than equal roles, but that neither role is superior. Apparently (sarcasm mode on), it’s an accident that men make the decisions that impact everyone in the congregation, and women are limited to making decisions that affect only women and girls.

This subservience is deeply ingrained in white Evangelical Christian culture. Evangelical women defend it vigorously. They actively argue for their own oppression in religious institutions.

Small wonder that they would continue to do so in the political arena at large. Yes, white Evangelical women want to be handmaidens. They are born and raised to it.