Reply #306: Evidence [View All]

[imenja]

I have researched this issue in the time I have available. This is what I have done: I searched the PBS website for a Bill Moyers program on the Moral Majority. I found no program archived that covers what you suggest. I also searched Google under "Bill Moyers" "moral majority", catholic, and alternate key words including Bishops and 1975. I found no discussion such as you outline.

I previously searched Google under "Moral Majority" and Catholic/s. I looked at two websites dedicated to exposing the impending papal takeover of America, and they repeat some of the charges that you assert. They are quite clearly sites intended to promote hatred of Catholics. Neither are reputable. Their arguments come straight from the Know Nothing and KKK play book.

I also searched a number of academic database on the subject: America History and Life, Cambridge Journals, JSTOR, Expanded Academic ASAP Plus. I have found a number of articles on the Moral Majority and the Christian Right but none that assert Catholics were primary in its formation. Most do not mention Catholics at all. A key word search of the Expanded Academic ASAP Plus was the most fruitful: 254 results for "Moral Majority;" two for "Moral Majority" +Catholic. Searching within the text of articles rather than just abstracts turned up 1237 for "Moral Majority" and 2 for "Moral Majority" and "Catholic." Their titles are "Catholics and the Religious Right" and "Ethical Issues in Health Care Restructuring."


The article on "Catholics and the Religious Right" is from _The Humanist_, a magazine rather than a peer reviewed academic journal. It seeks to correct misperceptions that Catholics are not involved in the Christian Right. He pointed to the same individuals you site as well as Cardinal John O'Conner. He also notes that Catholics are active in the Christian right, evidenced by the fact that 16.3% of the Christian Coalition membership is Catholic. No where does he claim the Catholics alone organized the Moral Majority and that Protestants played no role in its foundation.

The link to the desiderata of the 1975 National Council of Bishops does not provide evidence that that group formed the Moral Majority. It instead indicates a desire to form ecumenical alliances in pursuit of a pro-life agenda. Neither Falwell nor the Moral Majority are mentioned in the document.

In short, your claim that protestants did not found the Moral Majority and did not choose Falwell as their leader does not hold up to scrutiny. Your conception of what constitutes evidence does not meet my standards or those of any respectable publication.


The analogy: True: Clinton expressed concern that Saddam had WMD.
True: the National Council of Bishops expressed a desire to form an ecumenical alliance. False: Republicans are not responsible for the Iraq War and they did not appoint Rumsfeld. False: Protestants did not found the Moral Majority and did not choose Falwell as their leader. That was your claim and it is quite clearly false.

Now if you want to make the point that the Moral Majority or Christian Right is not entirely Protestant, that is certainly true. But that is not what you claimed. You instead focus on a minority within the movement and distort that to claim it is predominantly Catholic, that Protestants had no role in the formation of this particular right-wing group. Assuming that your point is quite narrow—only that Protestants did not form the MM or choose Falwell as their leader—it is nonetheless factually inadequate. This of course begs the question of why you would focus on a few individuals as evidence of supposed Catholic domination and the complete absence of Protestant involvement.


This should be more than adequate to set the record straight. Should you be interested in veracity, you will need to adjust your claims.