Social movement scholarship claims that opposing movements can createopportunities and generate mobilization for the other side. However, thereare still open questions as to how this influence between opposingmovements operates on an organizational level. This paper looks closely atone aspect of the impact of opposing movements: rhetorical strategies. Iexamine historical documents produced by social movement organizations todetermine the processes through which interactions between opposingmovements are integrated into the everyday work of producing movementclaims. This historical analysis evaluates the flyers, newsletters, andpress releases of lesbian and gay movement organizations in the UnitedStates over time, comparing documents produced before the emergence of theChristian antigay countermovement in 1977, with those produced immediatelyfollowing the countermovement’s entry into the political scene. I analyzethe shifts in lesbian and gay activists' claims between these two brieftime periods and link these changes to the presence of Christian antigayactivists. I find that frames, tone, and language shift for issues thatwere directly addressed by the Christian antigay movement (lesbian and gayrights), but that no similar change was present for issues on which theantigay movement remained silent (police harassment and lesbian/gay mediarepresentations). These findings support the claim that opposing movementsalter the political context in which the other side works, but they alsodemonstrate that new opportunities produced by an opposing movement may beissue-specific rather than movement-wide.