Falwell proposed biblical solutions to
what he perceived to be the social problems of
his day, and, in doing so, gave voice to an entire sub-culture of
Americans who stood against the equal rights movement. Like the
Bible, on which the Constitution was clearly predicated, American law
was perfect just the way it was, except,perhaps, for its permissive
attitude toward gays and drug addicts. The television had engendered
a “loss of respect for human life” after, not ten years prior,
galvanizing major national attention to such previously invisible
issues as racial discrimination and police brutality, and thus
prompting the very altruistic affirmations of human equality and
respect embodied in the Equal Rights Movement he urges his followers
to “stand against.” He mythologizes an America
“built on integrity and hard work,” but increasingly populated
with near-do-well sinners, and poses the rhetorical question “Does
the world owe them a
living?” Oddly, his appeal to the prideful ethic of those who work
for a living against those sedentary vultures profiting from their
existential losses is not far removed from Marx's appeal to the
proletariat a century
prior, but this point of agreement between religious radicals and
Godless communists remains lost upon the vast majority of each.
Alternately,
Falwell denounces the humanists for their “attempt to exempt
[themselves] from God's law.” True to form, he takes his
illustration directly from the red east, quoting Mao Tse-tung “Our
God is none other than the masses of the people.” This is not a
bridge either side of this extremist feud is expected to cross in the
foreseeable future. It is more likely that the progressive tide of
secularism and the practical concerns of survival will eventually
drown out the conflict, but at the time of this writing, the Moral
Majority, having stalled out in the nineties with Newt Gingrich, was
promptly resurrected by Bush II for the prophesied tribulation under
the most contentious presidency in American history, as two
completely new wars evolved on purely ideological grounds, ever
feeding the frenzied appetites of the nothing-if-not-imaginative
Signs and Wonders crowd. Almost as if by omnipotent choreography, the
most pervasive topics of debate in modern times include Gay Rights,
as marriage bans are overturned; Women's Rights, in the form of equal
pay legislation and rape-awareness; and Entitlement Reform, to
include “wellfare queens” or “corporate bailouts” depending
on who is in congress.
These
new phenomenon challenge many well established views of normative
behavior, and these challenges most often proceed from some aspect of
a faith tradition. Falwell's conservatism was a predictable reaction
to the liberalism driving policy and opinion. The problem with
secularism, which humanists often overlook, is that even the most
radical religious critics are equally human, and are reacting to a
perceived (and pervasive) threat to their own cultural models for
reality. As the world continues to recede from Divine Right
Autocracy, many are left behind, stranded like polar bears on
floating fragments of ice as glaciers retreat from global warming.
Whether right or wrong, a sense of isolation only ever exacerbates
the perception of any threat. Therefore, it is not surprising to note
Falwell's objective, which is quite naturally a call for revival,
confession, and repentance. He challenges “millions in the silent
majority...to pray...and exalt this nation,” and like a true
protestant reformer, invites them all “back to God, Back to the
Bible, Back to Morality!”
Years later,
Falwell would go on to sue a pornographic magazine for publishing a
pretty offensive ad-parody, and would have been awarded a substantial
civil claim had the decisions of his local courts been upheld by the
supreme court. More years later, the two highly controversial men
appeared together in a surprisingly warm and fascinating debate
regarding the social implications of that decision. Flynt argued that
had the courts decided in Falwell's favor, they would have set a
dangerous and unconstitutional precedent for censorship, thereby
undermining the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Falwell insisted that some panel or body convene to determine what is
and isn't “reasonably” offensive, but when asked repeatedly by
Flynt, the moderator, and by audience members who ought to be
entrusted with this sacred responsibility, Falwell conceded he did
not know, ant that he pushed the lawsuit in the first place because
“it was new ground; you didn't know whether or not you could plow
it until you went there.”
That he nearly
reaped six figures on a cartoon, he surely noticed.
That he nearly
broke the Constitution, and almost certainly broke television
(censors, as it turns out, were probably a good idea..) he did not
quite seem to miss. He said he “wanted consumers to decide” but
balked at both the spike in magazine sales and the unanimous Supreme
Court Decision in Flynt's favor. His primary interest, as he candidly
intimated, was to use the SCOTUS as a platform for reaching his
audience. As an audience member observes, the trial and the debate
were carried out between who are widely perceived as “a first
amendment hero and an elder statesman of the church.” The novelty
of the debate was watching two completely antithetical public figures
wax poetic, elbow to elbow, while joking and glowing in the limelight
of each others moment in the sun. The novelty of the trial, however,
as both men rightly perceived, was that it verified for each man that
America was still just exactly what he thought it was in the first
place. Through chuckles, they each confessed to having become
friends, and it is very difficult to measure the sincerity of this
claim. Through each other, they are each vindicated.
Its kind of
romantic really.
Image Source: https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/134586
Image Source: https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/134586