THE COGNITIVE STRUCTURE OF A MORAL CRUSADE - CONSERVATIVE PROTESTANTISM AND OPPOSITION TO PORNOGRAPHY

Research on social movements has once again come to focus on the cultu ral foundations of collective action. However, previous works have fai led to identify the cognitive structures that compose cultural worldvi ews believed to motivate collective action. We integrate Snow et al.'s (1986) notions of cognitive frameworks with Sewell's (1992) conceptio n of the duality of structure to piece together a flexible approach fo r the identification of cognitive structures. Drawing on information f rom insider documents from Conservative Protestant communities, we emp loy this approach to elaborate the structure of Conservative Protestan t antagonism to pornography. Using data from the 1988 General Social S urvey, we demonstrate how Conservative Protestants' distinctive religi ous commitments direct their dispositions toward sexually explicit mat erials. in brief, we show that Conservative Protestant opposition to p ornography is rooted in commitments to Biblical inerrancy and solidifi ed by high rates of religious participation. Inerrancy serves as a cog nitive resource informing two separate paths to pornography opposition : moral absolutism and beliefs in the threat of social contamination.