Evangelical’s accepting Catholics as Christians is actually a relatively new development and has to do with the decision to disguise racism as religion. That is the Moral Majority was formed to oppose Jimmy Carter because he ended all Government funding to any institution, especially “colleges and universities” that discriminated based on race. Realizing that racism alone would not produce the policies they wanted, led by the biggest racist of the 1950s Jerry Falwell Sr., the “Moral Majority” in addition to supporting racists and racism adopted anti-abortion planks so as to both put lipstick on a pig (hide the fact that racism was their real reason for existing) and expand their base to include Catholics who until then Evangelicals hated second only to Blacks. Remember many states north of the Mason Dixon line that had few Blacks and Jews like Maine had huge KKK membership because of the hatred of Catholics and that the biggest Evangelical victory in American history, Prohibition, was first and foremost supported because it was perceived to be anti-Catholic.
This distinction between the excuse of abortion and the reason Racism for values voters is why Evangelicals had no issue supporting the most pro abortion president in American history, Ronald Reagan, first Governor in American history to sign a bill legalizing abortion, a bill that to this day is the most permissive on the subject, appointed Supreme Court Justices that sided with the South on race but made sure abortion was stayed legal and followed policies that caused the number of abortions during Reagan’s term as president to greatly increase.