Minorities Are Moral, Too

October 5, 1980
Lakeland

Minorities Are Moral, Too

In speaking to the subject, “Minorities are Moral, Too,” I am in counterpoint to the Christian organization, “The Moral Majority” and other organizations which are labeled the “Christian Right Wing.” [CJW note: We are a minority religion.]

To keep my remarks within reasonably brief time, the attempt will be:

to describe the Moral Majority and other groups with similar goals and methods,
to outline reasons why I am not seriously disturbed at this time [that] the fundamentalist Christians are taking an interest in politics,
but also to point out what is the real danger, in my opinion, inherent in these movements,
lastly, what [minorities can and should] attempt to do.

Moral Majority was organized by Jerry Falwell of Lynchburg, VA. He is the originator of the Old Time Gospel Hour, a weekly TV show with a weekly viewing audience estimated at 25 million people. Falwell, a Baptist minister, says his organization, “Moral Majority”, has 2 million members, including 7,000 ministers (I’m not one of them) and a chairman in each state. He also asserts that in the past year Moral Majority has registered 3 million new voters.

Has this right-wing organization been effective? Moral Majority was responsible, at least in the past, for the defeat of a moderate Republican, Congressman John H. Buchanan, in the Alabama primary. Moral Majority is also believed to have taken control of Alaska Republicans and won most of the delegate seats for the Republican National Convention.

The most graphic way I can point out what Moral Majority supports and opposes is to describe its recent meeting in Tallahassee:

[news clipping describes a Moral Majority meeting in which political candidates stood before 3,000 in a church congregation and were asked to sit down only when they disagreed with certain policy positions which were read off in succession, covering homosexuals, abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment, pornography, and drugs. None sat down, and all were subsequently applauded. CJW notes, “I would have sat.”]

Moral Majority is not the only Christian Right Wing organization which is receiving both publicity and money this presidential election year. There is the “Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress.” The committee director, Paul Weyrich, promotes the same right-wing Christian views as the Moral Majority. He sees “the equal rights amendment and government-paid abortions” as part of a broad, liberal-backed “anti-family movement.” That movement, he recently declared, is part of the “age-old conflict between good and evil, between the forces of God and the forces against God.” (See WSJ 9/11/80)

Then there is [the] National Conservative Political Action Committee which will spend a million dollars attempting to defeat 6 liberal senators – McGovern, S.D.; Culver, IA; Church, Idaho; Birch Bayh, Ind.; Cranston, CA; and Eagleton, MO.

This right-win effort may succeed in 4 of those races.

Many of the leaders coalesce in the so-called “Religious Roundtable” where recently, 17,000 gathered in Dallas for a Christian political rally.

At the beginning I said I was not seriously disturbed by this new-found political zeal by right-wing Christians. There may come a day when I will have to eat my words.

There are those fearful enough of this right-wing movement to urge that church organizations stay out of politics or that liberals and moderates find some legislative method of checking the power of the fundamentalists. With that I cannot agree. There is an old Russian proverb, “Do not call in a wolf when dogs attack you.” The cure would be worse than the disease.

What is happening is not a violation of the wall of separation between church and state.

For example, our own Unitarian Universalist Association takes a position on social issues. Delegates to our yearly General Assemblies have passed resolutions on controversial issues. We have a Washington office of Social Concern where the director lobbies for the issues on which our delegates have taken a stand. They deal with issues, not candidates.

In addition, that office works in co-alition with other denominations (mostly mainline) who maintain social concern offices in Washington on particular issues. It is of course a fact that positions Unitarian Universalists have taken are directly opposite to the right wing Christians on such hot issues as choice in abortion, ERA, disarmament, gun control, homosexual rights, and many others.

Thus, one could not logically or fairly say they religious fundamentalists should not be heard on political issues when we have been taking stands for many years.

I would not wish government to have the power to shut up religious organizations when they want to be heard on issues before the Congress of the United States or the legislative bodies of the several states. “Do not call in a wolf when dogs attack you.”

But I also said at the beginning that there was danger in the right-wing religious movements. The danger, I perceive, is their apparent disdain for the convictions of those who disagree with them. The single most distinctive Constitutional feature is the Bill of Rights. All citizens are guaranteed freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, provisions concerning search and seizure, trial and punishment, and so on. It has always seemed to me that basic to these propositions is the undergirding assumption that the minority – even a minority of one – could be right and the majority wrong.

To live is to stand before alternatives every day. Prevailing opinions are like prevailing winds: they can shift directions. The majority today could be the minority tomorrow. When Moral Majority asserts that those who disagree with them go against God’s will, then it is they who are un-American. The minorities may be correct or wrong; so may the majority. To tag any minority as immoral because of disagreement with a majority on alleged religious grounds is religious dictatorship.

Senator George McGovern of SD, who is on the political hit list of the right-wing groups, said it well, “These New Right people have no respect for differences of opinion,” you’re either with them or you’re slated for extinction.

Aldous Huxley, in THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN wrote (p. 321), “Being in a crowd is the best-known antidote to independent thought.” The Reverend Bob Ware, Chairman of the Orange County Moral Majority, said the groups endorsements were decided by about 60 pastors who examined the positions of candidates on Moral Issues. [CJW note: 60 pastors doing the thinking for thousands of Christians is not only depressing; it is an unhappy ... precedent]

Martin Marty (CONTEXT, 5/15/80): “As I observe the ‘Moral Majority,’ the Religious Round Table, Christian Voice and other pre-emptive and imperial Protestant movements, it occurs to me that these ‘holy men’ who are trying to fill a political void are as intolerant as their counterparts around the world. They have no room for ‘humanists,’ ‘liberals,’ or any one who deviates from their lines. Fortunately, so far they have been unarmed.”

There is another point about those professing to have the only moral position because they represent a majority. On some issues, the question is, where does the majority stand? For example, a woman’s right to choose an abortion. All the surveys I have seen indicate that a majority of people support such a right. When only women are polled, the majority increases. This is in itself not an argument for anything, but [illustrates] the shaky assumptions not only that the majority defines morality but also that majority conviction can be clearly identified and counted.

The same could be said for the E.R.A. If you added the populations of the states which have ratified the E.R.A. with the populations which have not, clearly, the majority of U.S. citizens favor the E.R.A.

It seems clear to me that diversity and relativity characterize human life and moralities, not simplicities or single source self-assumed moral authorities.

What then should a liberal do? I said at the beginning that I was not seriously disturbed about the Right-Wing Christian movement. Among Murphy’s and other laws is Issawi’s Law of Social Motion: “Society is a mule, not a car. If pressed too hard, it will kick and throw off its rider.” Historian Hendrik Van Loon put it more elegantly, “The human race is possessed of almost incredible vitality. It has survived theology. In due time it will survive industrialism. It has lived through cholera and plague, high heels and blue laws. It will also learn to overcome the many spiritual ills which beset the present generation.” (Quoted, ECOLOGY NEWSLETTER)

There are signs that good sense may prevail. When the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston instructed the hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics in his archdiocese to vote against two liberal candidates, those two liberals were elected in the primary.

On the other hand, I salute the National Catholic Conference of Bishops [who] refused early in 1980 to direct Catholics to vote solely on the basis of positions against abortion. They emphasized that candidates be judged on a broad range of human rights.

Can we then just take our ease? No. The minority position (and sometimes majority) always needs expression, affirmation, and support. Person can disagree with person and in light of differing perspectives, each may have a moral position.

Particularly in these times we need to recognize the importance of organization and group effort. The Christian right-wing ... has been successfully organized, generously supported, and widely publicized.

Thee are, and have been, organizations which have struggled to disseminate and effectuate the liberal or progressive point of view on human rights – UUA, UUSC, American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, NOW, and others. The lesson is clear: Moral Majority and others have had an impact because they have been organized and supported.

There is also continuing obligation, it seems to me, not only to allow persons their opinions, but also to remind them there are other opinions, well thought out and seriously held, and to refuse to allow pre-emptors to stake a single claim to the word morality in the name of religious persuasion.

I recommend to me, to you, and to any member of the Moral Majority you or I may meet, the words of Professor [Edward] W. Said of Columbia (CONTEXT 5/1/80):

“True patriotism is wanting to know as much of the truth as possible, not just the part that encourages us in the feeling we are right.”