TV preacher Jerry Falwell claims to have a grand new idea for the latest religious-right powerhouse. I don’t believe him.
Seeking to take advantage of the momentum from an election where moral values proved important to voters, the Rev. Jerry Falwell announced today he has formed a new coalition to guide an “evangelical revolution.”
Falwell, a religious broadcaster based in Lynchburg, Va., said the Faith and Values Coalition will be a “21st century resurrection of the Moral Majority,” the organization he founded in 1979.
Falwell said he would serve as the coalition’s national chairman for four years.
So, what will the so-called “Faith and Values Coalition” do?
[Falwell] added that the new group’s mission would be to lobby for anti-abortion conservatives to fill openings on the Supreme Court and lower courts, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and the election of another “George Bush-type” conservative in 2008.
The group, in other words, is just another vehicle with the exact same agenda of dozens of other groups, including a few led by Falwell himself.
And that’s why I think this is more about public relations and fundraising than actual activism. Falwell has a history of “creating” entities to great fanfare, milking a few fundraising letters out of them, and then going back to doing whatever he was doing before.
* September 1982: Falwell announces a drive to register 1 million new voters before the November elections. There’s no evidence of any work actually being done.
* November 1984: Falwell creates the “I Love America Committee” political action committee, which was a financial disaster and was quickly (and permanently) abandoned. It was never heard from again.
* January 1987: Falwell announces that he is changing the name of the Moral Majority to the Liberty Foundation. The new name never catches on and the Liberty Foundation is never heard from again.
* March 1994: Falwell announces the formation of a new group, Mission America, which he claims will mobilize like-minded clergy across the country. Falwell describes the group as a “personal ministry.” There’s no evidence the group ever existed after the initial announcement and Mission America is never heard from again.
* August 1997: Falwell pleads for funds for a new group, the National Committee for the Restoration of the Judeo-Christian Ethic. In a fund-raising letter, he promises to “get back in the ring” and be a “spiritual George Foreman.” After Falwell published a couple of fund-raising letters, the group is never heard from again.
* April 2000: Falwell launches another new group, People of Faith, which he claimed would raise $25 million for pro-family campaign advocacy. After a high-profile kickoff in DC, there’s no evidence the group ever actually existed outside of Falwell’s imagination.
And now Falwell would have us believe he’s creating yet another new group and that this one really will exist. You’ll have to forgive my skepticism, but Falwell’s credibility on the subject is about as reliable as Dick Cheney talking about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Bottom line: Falwell is a shameless and notorious con man. He rolls out some new creation every few years to take advantage of unwitting supporters whom he knows will write him a few checks. It’s possible the “Faith and Values Coalition” may have a real office and staff, and may actually do some kind of work, but I’ll believe it when I see it.