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Speaker 1: What's operating dangerous prehistoric weaponry in a recording studio my me.

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Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans, hosted Behind the Bastards UH podcasts Bad

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Speaker 1: People talk about here with my friends Sophie and Sophia.

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Speaker 1: How you doing, Sophia. That was the worst opening of

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Speaker 1: all times. I think that was the worst. I really

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Speaker 1: do that well. I opened it that way because one

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Speaker 1: of my wonderful fans UH sent me a sling, like

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Speaker 1: a shepherd sling, which is like one of the deadliest

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Speaker 1: weapons of the ancient era, but modified to throw bagels.

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Speaker 1: It's got a huge David and Goliath vibe it does.

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Speaker 1: It's exactly that kind of sling, except for it throws bagels,

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Speaker 1: and I've got a very moldy bagel in there because

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Speaker 1: we don't change the beg I know you look horrified,

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Speaker 1: am I. I'm very touched by this gift. And the

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Speaker 1: one thing he said on the note card that vaguely

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Speaker 1: explained how to operate it was do not use it inside.

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Speaker 1: So I'm going to immediately do that. You already did

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Speaker 1: immediately do that. You tried to use it in a kitchen,

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Speaker 1: not not in the tiny confines of the recordings to you. So,

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Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just gonna do it, and so fucking lucky.

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Speaker 1: The smoldy bagel didn't touch the almond butter I've been

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Speaker 1: squeezing in my mouth. It did knock the soundproofing off

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Speaker 1: the wall slightly, so mad So Ifie, you knew as

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Speaker 1: soon as I got that in the mail, I was

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Speaker 1: going to have to throw it in the room where

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Speaker 1: it would do damage. Now you've taken it away. That's

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Speaker 1: the only way this was going to go. You did it.

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Speaker 1: It's over. How are you doing today, Sophia, I'm great.

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Speaker 1: How are you, Robber? I'm doing fantastic. I got to

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Speaker 1: throw a bagel. Uh, that's the plantation marks about it,

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Speaker 1: because you didn't. Really, it did not work. It hit

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Speaker 1: with some force. It did. My goal is always to

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Speaker 1: do damage to the room, and it did damage to

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Speaker 1: the room. Sophie's shooting daggers at you with her beautiful

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Speaker 1: big guys. I'm slowly sipping a coffee, making eye contact

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Speaker 1: the whole time, Sophie, this is what the fans love.

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Speaker 1: It's not the well researched essays. That's fine, Anderson wasn't harmed.

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Speaker 1: We can continue. Anderson's fine Sophia, what do you know

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Speaker 1: about Jerry Fallwell, I mean nothing great. You're not going

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Speaker 1: to learn nothing good. I'm just excited to not be

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Speaker 1: here for another baby murder themed episode. This is not

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Speaker 1: baby murder themed. If if you've heard me on this

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Speaker 1: podcast before, you know that Robert delights in torturing me

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Speaker 1: with only the most innocent deaths. You know, Sophia, it's

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Speaker 1: it's that most people aren't tough enough to handle the

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Speaker 1: baby murder episodes. I feel like that's what an abuse

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Speaker 1: of dad says when he hits you with his belt.

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Speaker 1: He's like, no, make a character better, it's free character.

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Speaker 1: What is it abuse if it's accidental and just based

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Speaker 1: purely on like irresponsibility and recklessness. Yes, okay, well fair,

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Speaker 1: Like what if your dad just doesn't make you buckle up?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, just purely hypothetical for you. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: Jerry Fallwell, it's kind of America's dad and his career.

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Speaker 1: I'll say this, it's the opposite of killing babies. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that is true, kind of. I mean he would say

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Speaker 1: it's the opposite of killing babies. I would say it's

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Speaker 1: stripping people of their reproductive health the interest of clumps

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Speaker 1: of cells. But there's a disagreement on that at a

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Speaker 1: fundamental level, which is why America's sliding towards the precipice

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Speaker 1: of any you want to talk about, Jerry Falwell's do it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's just get into this. According to some bullshit scrap

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Speaker 1: of paper called the constitutional and politics are supposed to

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Speaker 1: be separate things in this country. In fact, churches can

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Speaker 1: technically lose their tax exempt status if they're seemed to

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Speaker 1: advocate for a specific party or candidate too strongly. Oddly enough,

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Speaker 1: that never seems to happen, and a few million Christian

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Speaker 1: fundamentalists have succeeded in holding large chunks of our national

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Speaker 1: discourse hostage for decades. Now, how did this happen? Do

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Speaker 1: you tell? Well? It wasn't always this way, Sophia. It was.

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Speaker 1: It used to not be normal for religion and politics

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Speaker 1: to be as directly a thing as they are today.

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Speaker 1: And the answer to how things got where they are

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Speaker 1: starts with a fella named Jerry Folwell. Today he is

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Speaker 1: thankfully a dead person, but once upon a time he

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Speaker 1: was alive, and he funked up a truly shocking amount

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Speaker 1: of things for the rest of us. So that's what

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Speaker 1: this story is. This is the tale of how all

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Speaker 1: of the different chunks of American Christianity, at least the

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Speaker 1: unreasonable chunks of American Christianity, got together to really limit

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Speaker 1: the rights of women and gay people. That's that's that's

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Speaker 1: the story of Jerry Folwell. I feel you hate me

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Speaker 1: because you're like a less invite a bisexual woman to

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Speaker 1: talk about I want to invite the person who's going

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Speaker 1: to be angriest about what we talk about today. Hey,

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Speaker 1: fair enough, I get I got piste off writing it

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Speaker 1: like it was not a good time. Jerry Lemon Fallwell

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Speaker 1: was born on August eleven, n three. That's a dope

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Speaker 1: middle name. Why are we not focusing on that, Laman,

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Speaker 1: It is a cool middle name. Yeah, he had a

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Speaker 1: twin brother named Jean, who was born roughly at the

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Speaker 1: same time. But Jean was boring and we're not going

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Speaker 1: to talk about him today. What about his sister Lululemon.

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Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. Wouldn't it be weird if that was

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Speaker 1: the reality of the situation, that like there was the

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Speaker 1: same family gave us the religious right and Lululemon yoga pants.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's all evil, So it is all evil. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: very overpriced yoga pants. Jean and Jerry were born in Lynchburg, Virginia,

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Speaker 1: a town name aimed for the man who invented lynching. Fortunately,

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Speaker 1: he invented lynching for the purpose. Well okay, but it's

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Speaker 1: not actually a sad story. He invented lynching to do

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Speaker 1: it to British people, so it's not racist. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: guess it's. I'm fine with lynching. British people aren't wait, alienate?

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Speaker 1: Are British? Oh? They know what they did, Sophie. We've

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Speaker 1: done so many episodes on British people. Hey, British fans,

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Speaker 1: I don't feel the same, big inglio English anglophile. God,

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Speaker 1: damn it the name right. See, I know Prince Harry's hot. Continue.

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Speaker 1: I don't you know what's not hot? The British Empire

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Speaker 1: and the millions of people it killed. No empire, such

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Speaker 1: a downer, I know. And that's what lynching was invented.

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Speaker 1: It was. It was invented to lynch colonial overlords. So

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Speaker 1: I'm just saying lynching turned into something problematic. But it

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Speaker 1: started from a good place, a desire to hang colonial

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Speaker 1: oppressors by their thumbs. That was also the original Lynching.

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Speaker 1: I can't wait to see the T shirts. This is

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Speaker 1: going to inspire. I don't know how ways in to

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Speaker 1: defend lynching. Seriously, you're making headlines right now that no

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Speaker 1: one needs. Yeah, I I am always trying to be canceled,

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Speaker 1: which is why I recklessly throw mouldy bagels in a room. Well,

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Speaker 1: Miles and I have invented Cansylvania and he lives there recently.

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Speaker 1: You can be used for me, all right. Jerry Fallwell's father,

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Speaker 1: Carry Fallwell, which is frustrating to me, frustrating to write

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Speaker 1: and Jerry, Yeah, yeah. Carry Fallwell was an incredibly successful businessman.

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Speaker 1: He broke away from his family's history of being poor

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Speaker 1: farmers to start a grocery store in nineteen fifteen at

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Speaker 1: the age of twenty two. By nine one, he'd done

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Speaker 1: well enough to start opening a series of service stations

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Speaker 1: around Lynchburg to provide fuel for the growing automotist community.

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Speaker 1: Carry's main innovation was to add a small store or

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Speaker 1: restaurant to each of his stations. This idea proved popular

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Speaker 1: enough that he eventually opened seventeen stores in the Lynchburg area.

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Speaker 1: So he invented that. Yeah, I think I think he

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Speaker 1: was like one of the gas I think a station

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Speaker 1: seven eleven type thing, one of the guys like I

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Speaker 1: think a few people hit upon the eight of like

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Speaker 1: we're selling gas, we might as well sell some fucking spies. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but he's like one of the one of the pioneers

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Speaker 1: of the gas station market industry. That's pretty rad, pretty rad.

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Speaker 1: He's a he's a cool. You're gonna like him more

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Speaker 1: than than Jerry. I mean, that's not hard, Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: not hard. He was an objectively better person um, although

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Speaker 1: still pretty terrible. Uh yeah, so, carry success in the

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Speaker 1: fuel business led to him starting a new company distributing

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Speaker 1: oil and gas to sixteen counties in Virginia. Jerry Fallwell's

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Speaker 1: best biographer, Michael Shawn Winter's, describes Jerry's upbringing as affluent.

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Speaker 1: I prefer the term rich as hell. Jerry grew up

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Speaker 1: with no financial worries of any kind, but that does

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Speaker 1: not mean his childhood was easy. See. Carry Folwell was

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Speaker 1: great at business, but the rest to his life was

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Speaker 1: kind of a train wreck. For one thing, he was

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Speaker 1: not the kind of dude who could keep on the

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Speaker 1: straight and narrow. He opened a hotel in a dance hall,

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Speaker 1: which led him to sponsoring cock fights and dog fights

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Speaker 1: in a variety of venues. This was illegal at the time.

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Speaker 1: These were not you know, respectable cock fights. These were Okay,

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Speaker 1: this is the things you're going down for in this episode,

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Speaker 1: you're dying on the hill of lynching and cock fights. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm not dying. I'm just saying it was an illegal No,

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Speaker 1: there's a subterranean level to Cansylvania. It's like underneath regular Cansylvania.

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Speaker 1: And it smells a lot there. Yeah, it's it's so welcome,

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Speaker 1: probably worse than a cock fight smells. It's just are

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Speaker 1: we're just going to ignore the dog fight part of

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Speaker 1: this story? What the fuck? It's fucked up. I'm saying

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Speaker 1: it's bad. I'm just saying he's dying on the hill.

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Speaker 1: Apologize to Anderson. I am sorry, Anderson. I just wanted

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Speaker 1: to make it clear, like Virginia in nineteen teens, anything

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Speaker 1: could be legal. I just wanted to make it clear

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Speaker 1: that even even among in that like these were not

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Speaker 1: These were not legitimate dog fights. Again, the fact that

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Speaker 1: you keep separating it, it's like people who say what

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Speaker 1: is it, They're like, oh, yeah, there's consensual sex and

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Speaker 1: non consensual sex. No, non concexual sex is rape. I

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Speaker 1: feel like you're doing a real similar job over there. Well,

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Speaker 1: I just I assume there were legal dog fights in

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Speaker 1: Virginia as well, the good kind. Right, All dog fighting

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Speaker 1: is bad. Oh, I'm glad it took you, But I

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Speaker 1: I suspect I'm just saying these were particularly bad dog

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Speaker 1: fights fights. I can't get out of here, you dog linger.

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Speaker 1: If you split hairs enough, eventually you split an atom.

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Speaker 1: That blows up your career. That's a beautiful thing. Thank you.

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Speaker 1: So Carrie Fallwell got into the bootlegging business after getting

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Speaker 1: into the dog fighting business. His partner in bootlegging was

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Speaker 1: his brother Garland. They would use the trucks for their

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Speaker 1: oil and garglesness to deliver liquor to all of his

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Speaker 1: sundry stores. So that's how they would hide the liquors

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Speaker 1: and the gas trucks, which I'm sure made it taste great. Uh.

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Speaker 1: These illegal venues were incredibly profitable. In the nineteen seven

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Speaker 1: carry Fallwell started another legitimate business, the first bus company

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Speaker 1: with roots between Lynchburg and Washington, d C. So that's

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Speaker 1: good bringing lynching to other places. Pretty cool as long

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Speaker 1: as it's the kind of thumb lynching that's not racist.

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Speaker 1: Carry was too rich and too smart to get caught

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Speaker 1: breaking the law constantly, but everyone in town knew that

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Speaker 1: he was the shadiest motherfucker in the city. Uh. This

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Speaker 1: meant that the Fallwells were ostracized from high society. So

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Speaker 1: they were rich, but they weren't allowed to hang out

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Speaker 1: with the other rich folks. That does sound like the

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Speaker 1: best kind of rich to be right. You don't want

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Speaker 1: to hang out with other losers. You're just sing throwing

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Speaker 1: your money, and you're just like not because they're around

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Speaker 1: the dorky, fucking other rich people. It's like Cotillion's right,

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Speaker 1: that's all they're doing, just Contillians left and right, constant

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Speaker 1: debutante balls. Sounds like nothing. I want to be a

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Speaker 1: part of No No, but I think this this was

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Speaker 1: This was a bummer for Jerry Folwell as a little kid,

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Speaker 1: but that's he loved to debut. He was a big

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Speaker 1: debut er, debutist. So exacerbating their sort of pariah status

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Speaker 1: was the fact that Carry Folwell had an unfortunate habit

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Speaker 1: of playing profoundly abusive pranks on everyone around him. I'm

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Speaker 1: going to quote now from a very fantastic book, God's

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Speaker 1: Right Hand by Michael Winters. Jerry Folwell would later recall

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Speaker 1: that his father was a prankster. Jerry once brought a

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Speaker 1: friend home who admitted he was scared of carry. Jerry

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Speaker 1: told his father of his friend's fear, half cautioning half

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Speaker 1: goat and carry as he brought the young man into

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Speaker 1: the house. When the young friend walked in, Carrie shouted, stopped,

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Speaker 1: aimed a pistol at the boy's feet, and shot a

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Speaker 1: hole in the floor a few instus in front of

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Speaker 1: his shoes. I've been trying to get that fly all day,

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Speaker 1: Jerry's father announced, returning to his newspaper while the boy

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Speaker 1: fled the house. Jerry admitted that he and his father

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Speaker 1: held with laughter. Some of the pranks were cruel, however,

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Speaker 1: some of them were as opposed to that other good

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Speaker 1: prank that happened that was majoredly shooting at somebody. It

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Speaker 1: was a playful gun shots, Sophia, not one of those

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Speaker 1: mean gun shots. Some of the pranks were cruel, however,

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Speaker 1: as when Carrie decided he had enough complaints from one

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Speaker 1: of his workers. When the man called in sick, Carrie

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Speaker 1: offered to have lunch brought to his house, then killed

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Speaker 1: and skinned the man's cat, putting it into a squirrel stew,

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Speaker 1: and sent it to the man's home for lunch. The

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Speaker 1: next day, the man complained that the squirrel meating the

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Speaker 1: stew had been tough, and Carrie told him he had

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Speaker 1: eaten his own cat. That is not a joke. That's

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Speaker 1: not a prank. That's a Greek is not a Greek

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Speaker 1: myth thing, the myth they fed dude to his own

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Speaker 1: his own kids. Oh yeah, that's right up fucking ancient evil.

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Speaker 1: That's not even like modern. Yeah, that's like what a

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Speaker 1: Greek god would do to fun because like they have

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Speaker 1: no sense of human morality. Yeah, it's like an Olympic prank.

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Speaker 1: It's it's serial killer ship Mount Olympus. That is fucking insane. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's something a serial killer does as a joke. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna kill made you eat a cat? Like so crazy?

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Speaker 1: What does he think the payoff is when he tells

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Speaker 1: the guy just watches him cry. I think it's just

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Speaker 1: he's the guy's boss, so there's nothing the dude can

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Speaker 1: do against him. I mean, but like, what's the reaction

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Speaker 1: He's hoping for for him to cry. Yeah, I think so.

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Speaker 1: Probably that's so crazy. He's just a piece of ship.

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Speaker 1: He's a really bad person, way better person than his

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Speaker 1: kid turns out to be. Yeah, So hearing all that,

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Speaker 1: it probably won't surprise you to learn that Carry Folwell

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Speaker 1: was an outrageous drunk. His brother Garland was too, And

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Speaker 1: while Carry was a relatively peaceful drunk, preferring to get

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Speaker 1: wasted at home alone most of the time, Garland was

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Speaker 1: pretty much the worst case scenario for an alcoholic. He

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Speaker 1: had a tendency to fall into violent rages. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty one, he was arrested for shooting at some teenagers

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Speaker 1: who'd annoyed him. This was not an isolated incident. Garland

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Speaker 1: Folwell had numerous arrests for violent drunken behavior. All of

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Speaker 1: this came to a head in nineteen thirty one, which

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Speaker 1: is probably the worst year of young Jerry Folwell's life.

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Speaker 1: It was certainly the worst year of his father's life.

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Speaker 1: Carrie's daughter, Rasha and Jerry's sister, was struck ill with appendicitis.

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Speaker 1: Kerry didn't believe in hospital, so he tried to treat

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Speaker 1: her at home. Her appendix burst and she died of

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Speaker 1: periton itis at age ten. There's a dead kid, and

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Speaker 1: that also like he's son of a bitch. You got

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Speaker 1: me in there, isn't It? Also an incredibly painful way

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Speaker 1: to die, one of the worst. From what I understand,

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Speaker 1: if you when you're appendix explodes is like the most painful.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like a terrible way to die. Yeah. Also

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Speaker 1: pretty cool that you have so much like Hubris that

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Speaker 1: you're like, no, I'll treat this, I'll treat this. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: ninety one too. There's actual medicine by that point. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: just a few months after Rasha died, while Carrie was

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Speaker 1: still deep in grief, Garland got incredibly drunk and started

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Speaker 1: shooting off firecrackers. Someone in town called the cops on

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Speaker 1: him for some unclear reason, probably boiling down to the

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Speaker 1: fact that he was really wasted. Garland became convinced that

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Speaker 1: his brother Carry is the one that called the cops

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Speaker 1: on him. He tracked Carry down and started shooting at him.

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Speaker 1: Carrie grabbed his shotgun, returned fire, and killed his brother instantly. Okay,

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Speaker 1: that delights me. Yeah, that's great. You're gonna like this

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Speaker 1: to the low. A newspaper wrote of the event, Garland

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Speaker 1: Folwell is dead. Thus his turbulent career of terrorizing the

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Speaker 1: police and populace was brought to an abrupt close. Even

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Speaker 1: the paper on him, they're like, this is the worst

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Speaker 1: guy in our city who wants to dance on his

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Speaker 1: grave tonight. That's literally the tone of it. It's just like,

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Speaker 1: what a piece of ship. Thank god he's dead, ding dong,

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Speaker 1: And it's one of those things like Carrie Fallwall is

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Speaker 1: obviously a bad guy. Sounds like this was a totally

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Speaker 1: justified homicide. I mean, if it's just fucking horrible people

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Speaker 1: killing each other, it's just it's all a win win.

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Speaker 1: They're both people who use guns as ways to punctuate,

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Speaker 1: like gunfire to punctuate their arguments. Yeah. I mean I

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Speaker 1: feel like the only people then they should argue with

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Speaker 1: is each other. And that's what happened. That's so great. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I I prefer to use a nice throwing bagel on

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Speaker 1: a sling as a way to punctuate my rages. I mean, again,

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Speaker 1: would be more impressive. You could actually master the throat,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's new. You gotta look, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you stopped. Well, I can throw them with my hand.

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to learn how to use the sling. All right,

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Speaker 1: it's outside like they said in the now. No, I'm

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Speaker 1: only ever going to use it in recording studios. You're

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Speaker 1: fired at some point. Yes, eventually I will cross a

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Speaker 1: final line and damage equipment in this studio and that

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Speaker 1: will be the end of this podcast. Yeah. Anyway, back

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Speaker 1: to the Fallwells. So things are going great for the

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Speaker 1: Fallwell family. In n one daughter dies of appendicitis. Gunfight

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Speaker 1: between the two brothers leads to one of them dying. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this all broke Carry Fallwell. His alcoholism got worse after

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Speaker 1: this point, and Jerry would later recall the many nights

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Speaker 1: that his father spent drinking heavily and sobbing over his

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Speaker 1: brother and daughter. All these scandals further isolated the Fallwell

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Speaker 1: clan from mainstream society and Lynchburg. And this was all

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Speaker 1: exacerbated by the fact that Carry was a second generation atheist,

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Speaker 1: so he was not in line with the values of

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Speaker 1: the town either. Now, Jerry's mother, Helen, was a very

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Speaker 1: different person. Her family were hardcore Baptists. Some sources will

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Speaker 1: say that she wasn't religious until her son started his church,

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Speaker 1: but this seems to be untrue. She even made sure

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Speaker 1: that Jerry and Jean went to church every Sunday. Religion

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Speaker 1: was a part of Jerry's life from the beginning, but

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Speaker 1: it wasn't a huge part, and for a long time.

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Speaker 1: It seems like he kind of took after his dad

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Speaker 1: in that regard. So he grows up a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a wild child. Now. The third person who helped

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Speaker 1: to raise Jerry and Jean Folwell was there, black nanny

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Speaker 1: David Brown. Jerry would later write. In the mornings, he

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Speaker 1: bathed and dressed us, He held and rocked us. At naptime,

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Speaker 1: he fed and changed us. He helped us with our

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Speaker 1: first faltering steps, and he picked us up off the

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Speaker 1: ground when we stumbled or fought or fell. He was

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Speaker 1: practically a member of our family, but he ate alone

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Speaker 1: on the back porch and sat in the shadows when

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Speaker 1: he wasn't needed. Wow, it sounds like they really valued

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Speaker 1: him as a human being. Yeah. Yeah, this is something

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Speaker 1: that he writes regretfully about as an adult. Um as

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Speaker 1: a kid. You know, he's a kid. From the beginning.

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Speaker 1: He took after his father, both in the fact that

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Speaker 1: he was filled with ambition and reckless energy. His father

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Speaker 1: taught he and his brother to drive when they were

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Speaker 1: both ten years old, which is, you know, the right

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Speaker 1: age to start doing that. At uh, they were allowed

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Speaker 1: to drive around the family property as much as they

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Speaker 1: wanted when they were thirteen, carry light about their ages

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Speaker 1: to get them driver's licenses. He was so cherry. Fallwell

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Speaker 1: was the first kid at his school with a car,

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Speaker 1: which obviously helped his social life. Kind of kind of

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Speaker 1: washes away a little bit of the shame of your

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Speaker 1: your dad killing your uncle. People are like, cool, look, car,

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Speaker 1: he's got a car. I don't even care that his

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Speaker 1: dad shoots at us. Jerry was a good student. He

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Speaker 1: took after his father. He was intelligent, ambitious, and energetic.

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Speaker 1: But he also took after his dad with a dedication

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Speaker 1: to mean spirited pranks. When he was in fifth grade,

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Speaker 1: he let a snake loose in his classroom. This will

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Speaker 1: be the least disturbing of the pranks that Jerry Fallwell commits.

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Speaker 1: You look so excited to tell me. I'm so excited

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Speaker 1: to talk about I love it. It's like I love it.

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Speaker 1: Whenever these people have pranks in their history, it's I

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Speaker 1: it's like talking about Saddam Hussein threatening his principle with

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Speaker 1: a gun like that. It's also the things that they

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Speaker 1: call branks. It's like, yeah for rich people, it spranks

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Speaker 1: poor people. It's like attempted murder. Uh yeah uh. In night,

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Speaker 1: when Jerry was fifteen, his father died of liver failure.

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Speaker 1: This hit Jerry hard and quite possibly had an effect

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Speaker 1: on his behavior in high school. But also is the

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Speaker 1: least surprising way that not alcoholic was gonna go. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was the only way carry Fallwall was going to go.

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Speaker 1: Or shooting himself accidentally. Yeah. Uh. Jerry formed a gang

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Speaker 1: called the Wall Gang with his friends based on the

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Speaker 1: fact that they would meet at a wall to hang out.

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Speaker 1: That's a that's very creative, very creative. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you're aware of this, but Virginia in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: forties was the world center of creativity. Uh. Jerry was

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Speaker 1: the leader of the gang because he was the only

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Speaker 1: one with a car, and he liked to lead his

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Speaker 1: group into a series of fist five with other gangs

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Speaker 1: around town. Winter's Rights that Fallwell insisted things never went

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Speaker 1: beyond quote a few split lips, the occasional broken bone,

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Speaker 1: and small scale property damage. Geez. The odd broken bone, Like,

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Speaker 1: who of us hasn't formed a gang to break other

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Speaker 1: people's bones a little bit? Why do you think I

387
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Speaker 1: was late today, youthfully just cracking somebody over the head

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Speaker 1: with a two by four. You know how I like

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Speaker 1: to be a rascal. If you do it with a

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Speaker 1: smile on your face, it's rascally, Yeah, exactly, as long

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Speaker 1: as you're not frowning now. Jerry's pranks grew more brutal

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Speaker 1: in his late teens. I'm going to quote again from

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Speaker 1: God's right hand. Once to punish and neighbor the gang

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Speaker 1: thought had called the police on them, they grabbed some

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Speaker 1: old tar soaked railroad ties and let them on fire

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Speaker 1: in front of the offender's home. They did not anticipate

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Speaker 1: that the asphalt on the street would catch fire, but

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Speaker 1: it did, and soon the entire street was in flames.

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Speaker 1: Faultwell skill as a prankster also took a darker turn.

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Speaker 1: Like his dad, he could be cruel. Many years later,

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Speaker 1: he would recall taking on a teacher whom he described

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Speaker 1: as a mean little man who pranced about in our

403
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Speaker 1: physical ed classes and who exhibited prissy falsetto ways. Fallwell

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00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:09,840
Speaker 1: tackled him took off his pants, locked him in a

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Speaker 1: storage closet, and then pin the man's pants to a

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Speaker 1: bulletin board in another part of the school. Another time,

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Speaker 1: he placed a live this is a teacher he did

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Speaker 1: his jim teacher. Holy fuck. Teachers are usually the abusers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think this guy, I think, And he clearly did

410
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Speaker 1: it because he was like, you're gay, Yeah, exactly exactly.

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Speaker 1: Fwell things rips his pants off a school for that, No,

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Speaker 1: he's rich. Wow. Another time teacher pantsing a fucking tea,

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Speaker 1: panting and locking in a closet and mailing the pants

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Speaker 1: to a wall. That's so fu up. Yeah, it's amazing.

415
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Speaker 1: Another time, he placed a live rat in a teacher's drawer.

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Speaker 1: When she opened the drawer, the rat jumped out and

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Speaker 1: the teacher fell unconscious to the floor. Now that's a

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Speaker 1: classic prank. Yeah, I mean that's the only one you

419
00:22:55,760 --> 00:22:58,159
Speaker 1: could actually consider a prank. Yeah, that, I guess. The

420
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:02,639
Speaker 1: snake those are like good natured country prints. If the

421
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:06,960
Speaker 1: snake bite is like like a gardener snake or something, Yeah,

422
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:12,320
Speaker 1: then it's fine. Yeah, then it's fine. Yeah. Abusing physically

423
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:14,679
Speaker 1: and panting or lighting someone's house on a fire. I

424
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:20,280
Speaker 1: don't know pranks. Uh. Later in life, Jerry would say

425
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:22,919
Speaker 1: that these pranks and straight up assaults are how he

426
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:26,400
Speaker 1: began to understand the principle of cause and effect. Actions

427
00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:30,680
Speaker 1: responsible or irresponsible lead to consequences. But of course there's

428
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:33,600
Speaker 1: no evidence that Jerry fall will ever suffered any consequences

429
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:36,119
Speaker 1: as a result of his incredibly bad behavior. As an

430
00:23:36,119 --> 00:23:38,520
Speaker 1: older man, he smoked with regret about these actions, and

431
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:41,000
Speaker 1: the idea he seems to want to push by telling

432
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,560
Speaker 1: these stories is that he had a growing realization of

433
00:23:43,560 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 1: how bad he'd been and that helped drive him to God.

434
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:48,400
Speaker 1: And this is where I have to point out something important.

435
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:51,400
Speaker 1: If you spend any time at all around evangelical Christian communities,

436
00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 1: at least the mainstream ones, you'll notice something peculiar. A

437
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 1: shocking number of high profile figures in that community will

438
00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: claim to have some sort of tremendously dark past selling drugs,

439
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 1: are being involved in prostitution, or being you know, some

440
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,240
Speaker 1: sort of criminal, being violent, or whatever. For many popular

441
00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:10,199
Speaker 1: evangelical speakers, this dark past is an integral part of

442
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: their backstory. These stories are usually lies and always exaggerated,

443
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,679
Speaker 1: and they serve primarily to highlight the power of Christ grace.

444
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:19,199
Speaker 1: Most of our details on Jerry's early life come from

445
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:22,120
Speaker 1: Jerry himself. And while Winters, who researched the man thoroughly

446
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:24,680
Speaker 1: does believe the stuff that I've related to you is true,

447
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 1: I have my doubts that fall will ever regretted any

448
00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 1: of his actions. Um, but in any case, it's important

449
00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:33,960
Speaker 1: to Jerry fallwell or it was because now he's dead, uh,

450
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 1: that you know that he was a bad guy before

451
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:39,359
Speaker 1: he found the light of the Lord. It always really

452
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:44,480
Speaker 1: creeps me out whenever, like really horrible people will say like, oh,

453
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 1: you know, I was horrible and then I had a

454
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 1: daughter and I was like, oh man, I've been horrible,

455
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:52,160
Speaker 1: or like oh and then I It's always very confusing

456
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,359
Speaker 1: to me that they don't understand empathy yet all, and

457
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:58,359
Speaker 1: that they literally need to torture people to learn empathy.

458
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 1: How is it not something that you just feel towards people?

459
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 1: Towards people because I think in a lot of cases,

460
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:06,159
Speaker 1: because you grow up rich and you don't have to

461
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 1: That's what's so crazy, right. It seems like money just

462
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:12,439
Speaker 1: takes away people's like value systems or replaces it, and

463
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 1: then they're like, oh no, I need to rape a

464
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,680
Speaker 1: girl like brock turn or something to to understand, you know, like,

465
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,720
Speaker 1: oh yeah, thinks actions of consequences. Why do we need

466
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 1: to be your like like experiment like other people. That's

467
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: not right for you to learn your morals on other people.

468
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: And it only it really only seems to be with

469
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 1: girls in particular, because you only usually hear the story

470
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:37,159
Speaker 1: with Like when I had a daughter, I understood, and

471
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 1: it's like nobody's ever like, you know, I thought it

472
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 1: was cool to kill cats until I had a kitten,

473
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 1: and then I was like, oh, all this cat murdering

474
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:45,880
Speaker 1: I've been doing is a bad thing. Nobody nobody says that.

475
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: They just say, like I thought sexual harassment was fun

476
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:52,200
Speaker 1: until I had a daughter. Now I realized it's not. Yeah,

477
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 1: and it's safe. Same with these like rich ass guys

478
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,920
Speaker 1: like Jerry, it's like, oh, well, I didn't know that

479
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 1: you couldn't actually do these fucked up abusive things until

480
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: I did them and nothing happened to me. That makes

481
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: no sense. What a guy's house on fire, Jerry Fallwell,

482
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 1: Sophie is telling me that it's well passed time for

483
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 1: an ad break. Sophia, Uh, you have any ads you

484
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,400
Speaker 1: want to tell. I mean, as you know, I love

485
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:26,359
Speaker 1: any kind of goods and services. Um, But personally, I

486
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:30,159
Speaker 1: have a podcast named Private Parts Unknown that I co

487
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 1: host with Courtney's Kossak, and it's about love and sexuality

488
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 1: around the world. And we're about to go to Mexico City.

489
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:38,440
Speaker 1: It's gonna be really fun. That's one of my favorite cities.

490
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 1: We're going to talk after the podcast for your depths. Okay,

491
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:47,159
Speaker 1: it's great, Mexico City. Well, thank you for bringing that up.

492
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 1: I forgot because I got so excited by the bagel

493
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: thing at Um. Should we go to ads now, Sophie,

494
00:26:54,359 --> 00:27:00,480
Speaker 1: Sophie siating, we should go to ads products. It's the

495
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:03,200
Speaker 1: most wonderful time of the year. But of course, wonderful

496
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:05,879
Speaker 1: people are generally boring, and if you're a fan of

497
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards, you probably would prefer to hear about

498
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:10,919
Speaker 1: the very worst people in all of history, which is

499
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:12,919
Speaker 1: why you're listening to the show and why you should

500
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 1: listen to the wonderful audio books on Audible right now.

501
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:19,679
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards has partnered with Audible to give you

502
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507
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509
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510
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516
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517
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518
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:13,919
Speaker 1: text behind to five hundred five hundred. We're back, and

519
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: Sophie is refusing to give me back my sling um,

520
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:22,440
Speaker 1: which is probably a responsible move, Um, but I'm still furious,

521
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:27,879
Speaker 1: living angry. Imagine how furious I would be if you

522
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: slung something and it hit Anderson. It's a bagel dogs

523
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: love them, but if it hits and with a force.

524
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 1: It's not so she doesn't like everything bagels? What kind

525
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 1: of bagels? Does she like? Blueberry? All right, I'll throw

526
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 1: blueberry next time Anderson's in the room. See this, This

527
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: is how empathy works. This is this is a man

528
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: who understands empathy. Still not getting back your sling, though, dude, Sorry,

529
00:28:56,080 --> 00:29:02,200
Speaker 1: fair enough. We're talking Jerry Fallwell j falls uh weird.

530
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: I don't like that, j Faul. I always give my

531
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 1: subjects a terrible nickname. I don't like it. You don't

532
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: like that, Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff sounds like it's a

533
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: Missy Elliott exclusive cheer. I don't know. He doesn't get

534
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 1: that reference, but I did, and I liked. Sophie says

535
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: it's good. Do you seriously not know who Missy Elliott is?

536
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: I feel like you're doing this on purpose. I'm really not.

537
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: I thought it was Ariana Grande for a very long time.

538
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:38,239
Speaker 1: That is what it is. Wait, no, I called her

539
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 1: Grand's called her Ariana grand There we go. I forgot

540
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 1: which embarrassing thing I got wrong. Only one of Jaff's

541
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 1: pranks had any sort of long term impact on him.

542
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 1: In his senior year, Jerry and his friends got the

543
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 1: combination of the school safe. They stole huge numbers of

544
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: lunch tickets and handed them out to their friends in

545
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: the locker room. They considered this a harmless prank. The

546
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 1: school considered this thousands of dollars and theft. Uh. Jerry

547
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: certainly could have faced criminal charges for this because it

548
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 1: was thousands of dollars of theft. Instead, he was simply

549
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 1: denied the privilege of addressing the school as class valedictorian.

550
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 1: So God, the consequences really ruined his life. Yeah, yeah,

551
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:18,480
Speaker 1: that really fucked things up for him. Jerry went to

552
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: Lynchburg College after high school. Jerry Fallwell majored in mechanical

553
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:24,600
Speaker 1: engineering and excelb at math and physics. He didn't spend

554
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: any school time studying religion. He later recalled, though, that

555
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: his mother's habit of listening to Charles Fuller's Old Fashioned

556
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: Revival Hour on the radio every Sunday had an impact

557
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: on him. Early in nineteen fifty two, while hanging out

558
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: at the cafe with his Wall Gang friends, Faulwell asked

559
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: if anyone in town knew a church that had preaching

560
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 1: like Charles Fuller's show. One of his friends advised the

561
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 1: Park Avenue Baptist Church. He said the church had good

562
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: music and most importantly, pretty girls. In search of these girls,

563
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: Jerry Folwell made the fateful decision to attend church on

564
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: January nineteen fifty two Dun doun Dun duntan. During that service,

565
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: he met a young woman, Mazel Pate, who played piano

566
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 1: for the church. Soon after, Mazel and Jerry would wind

567
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: up dating and then marrying. They would be together for

568
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: the rest of Jerry's life, and Young Fallwell found more Mazel.

569
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:15,479
Speaker 1: I think she was pretty shitty too, Oh yeah, yeah.

570
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 1: Young Fallwell found more than just a soul mate at

571
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 1: the Park Avenue Church. He found Jesus. He would later

572
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: recall that his journey to becoming a born again Christian

573
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,520
Speaker 1: started when he learned that the world of man was

574
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: run by Satan while the world of God was ruled

575
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: by Jesus. Jerry had seen more of the dark side

576
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: of the world of man than most kids. By this point.

577
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: He turned away from the from him, from himself and darkness.

578
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 1: The darkness call came from inside the house, Jerry Fallwell,

579
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 1: that you've been and witness to you did strips a

580
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: man's pants off, beats him up and locks him in

581
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: a closet. Boy, people are awful. Yeah, He's like, this

582
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 1: is really a lot of arson and us all going

583
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: on in I don't know, at least around me. Seems

584
00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: like people are really violent right around me. Yeah, it's crazy.

585
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 1: I'm like at the epicenter, idiot. Uh yeah, so uh yeah.

586
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 1: Jerry decided after this point that he was going to

587
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: turn away from the darkness of the world of man

588
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 1: and align himself with the light of the world of God.

589
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six, at age twenty two, Jerry Falwell

590
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: founded a church of his own, the Thomas Road Baptist Church.

591
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: It made himself the pastor, and he started preaching. According

592
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: to the Western Illinois Historical Review, quote from the time

593
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 1: he founded his church, all of his activities flowed from

594
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:32,920
Speaker 1: his efforts to build it to RBC, built a home

595
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: for alcoholics, a haven for unwed mothers, and established a

596
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: television ministry at the urging of Folwell. Jerry's television and

597
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: radio show, The Old Time Gospel Hour, was a direct

598
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 1: imitation of the radio preacher his mother had loved. By

599
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 1: making the jump to television, Folwell became one of the

600
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 1: pioneers of televangelism. A guy named Percy Crawford was the

601
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: actual first televangelist, and both men owed a debt to

602
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: fascist slash Catholic priest Charles Coughlin in their attempts to

603
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: create a media empire based around his preaching. But Jerry

604
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 1: was one of the first ones to really make a

605
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: televangelist thing like as the as like the foundation of

606
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 1: his career. Quick question, how does pastoring work? You can

607
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: just make yourself a pastor. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, okay,

608
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: I'm a pastor. Now, this is America. There's I don't

609
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: think there's really any more to it than that. That's

610
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 1: fucking awesome. Yeah, it's pretty great. I've I've been considering coming.

611
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 1: I've I'm considering becoming a freelance cult leader. Um so

612
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: I've been looking into how easy it is to just

613
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 1: declare yourself or whatever of whatever religion. It turns out

614
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:31,959
Speaker 1: there's no rules around that sort of thing. Well, if

615
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: you need a sidekick, I'm here and I love just

616
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 1: I don't know, brainwashing people, I guess that's how other

617
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 1: people put it. The key is we can't spend more

618
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 1: than twenty hours a week on the cult related business good.

619
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 1: I don't have time for that. I wanted for this

620
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:48,719
Speaker 1: to be more than a part time thing, exactly. It's

621
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: a side hustle, yes like that. I wanted to be

622
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 1: a cult for millennials. And as a result of that,

623
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 1: we've got to be like contract employees. Yeah. I mean

624
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 1: it's like five hours driving for left, a couple hours

625
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 1: than I do, stand up at night, and no health care.

626
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: What a beautiful way to live. Our generations really got

627
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 1: it made in the shade. So like his father, Jerry

628
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 1: Fallwell proved to have a brilliant head for business. Unlike

629
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 1: his father, all of Jerry's businesses were above board and legal.

630
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I actually see. I told you you're gonna

631
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 1: like carry Fallwell way better already miss him? Yeah, I

632
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:32,919
Speaker 1: miss him? What you do and carry then from alcoholism.

633
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: He's shooting at people's feet in heaven. Now Hell must

634
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: be missing an angel. In nineteen sixty seven, Jerry founded

635
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: his first school, the Lynchburg Christian Academy. He became convinced

636
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:49,240
Speaker 1: of the necessity of creating a separate Christian education system,

637
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: one that could protect students from the evils of the

638
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:54,280
Speaker 1: world of Satan. Some of the evils he preached against

639
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:57,280
Speaker 1: were imminently sensible given his difficult upbringing. He railed against

640
00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: alcohol and drunkenness do in part to the horrifying example

641
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: set down by his dad and uncle. But Jerry also

642
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:06,239
Speaker 1: preached against integration. So I was waiting for when that

643
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 1: was going to read, Yeah, yeah, we getta get a

644
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: nice dose or racism. Here, I'm gonna quote again from

645
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:16,200
Speaker 1: God's right hand. One early sermon from nineteen fifty eight

646
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: has come down to us, printed in the newsletter that

647
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 1: the Fall Will distributed to those who watched his television show.

648
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: It is curious that he chose his sermon for the

649
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:24,839
Speaker 1: first installment of the newsletter because it did not treat

650
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: one of his usual subject topics. The sermon is entitled

651
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:32,720
Speaker 1: Segregation or Integration, which, unsurprisingly given the sermon was preached

652
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:35,800
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty eight in south central Virginia, Folwell argued

653
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 1: in favor of segregation. Follow sermon begins by blaming the

654
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 1: Supreme Court for the chaos and racial tension that was

655
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 1: then on the rise. He also noted that the communist

656
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 1: countries were using the racial tension as a propaganda tool

657
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 1: throughout the world. Indeed, Folwell did not blame blacks for

658
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 1: causing the trouble. The true negro does not want integration.

659
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,239
Speaker 1: He realizes his potential is far better among his own.

660
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:59,840
Speaker 1: Folwell blamed the push for integration first on Moscow, second

661
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 1: on politicians using the issue for their own ends, and

662
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:05,319
Speaker 1: finally on the devil himself, who boxed God out of

663
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: the Supreme Courts jurisprudence when it rendered its nineteen fifty

664
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 1: four decision, and Brown versus the Board of Education ending

665
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 1: legal segregation. If Chief Justice Earl Warren and his associates

666
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,759
Speaker 1: had known God's word and desired to do the Lord's will,

667
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:20,320
Speaker 1: I am quite confident that the nineteen fifty four decision

668
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:23,240
Speaker 1: would never have been made. Folwell said, what could possibly

669
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: have been worked out in a scriptural and orderly way

670
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: has now become a touchy problem. Touchy just a deep

671
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 1: sigh of ye. It's obviously terrible, um, although it's also

672
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:42,399
Speaker 1: obviously like you throw a rock in Virginia and you'll

673
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:44,719
Speaker 1: find somebody who believes basically the same thing. Of course,

674
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,280
Speaker 1: yeah yeah uh. And in a little bit of fairness,

675
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: Jerry would completely change his mind on segregation later in

676
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 1: life and would devote years to preaching against it. Uh.

677
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:55,919
Speaker 1: Not that long after this, but while the civil rights

678
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:59,240
Speaker 1: movements saw its most crucial difficult hours, Jerry Folwell preached

679
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 1: against it. He leaved God had decreed the segregation of races,

680
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: and he cited, for one things, God's decision that the

681
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 1: Jews should be his chosen people as evidence of the

682
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:10,839
Speaker 1: fundamental validity of segregation. Wow, I've never heard that spin.

683
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 1: That is quite quite the racist logic there. That's pretty insane. Yeah,

684
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 1: it's neat to run the new racist logic that I

685
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: hadn't run into before. Yeah, whoa, that's I've never connected

686
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,799
Speaker 1: those before. Thanks for bringing us into the fold. Thanks

687
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:28,759
Speaker 1: for that's Jerry. Now, Jerry started to change his mind

688
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: about segregation in the mid nineteen sixties. There were a

689
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:33,320
Speaker 1: number of events that led to this, but the single

690
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: searing experience he would later cite as key to his

691
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: conversion on the issue, was the day that his shoe shiner,

692
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:41,239
Speaker 1: a black man named Lewis, asked him a question. He

693
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 1: told Jerry he was a fan of the pastor's sermons

694
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:45,719
Speaker 1: and listened to them on the radio regularly. Then he

695
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 1: asked if he would be able to join Fallwell's church

696
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,839
Speaker 1: Jerry later wrote that this question left him utterly speechless

697
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: because like he wasn't allowing black people in his church,

698
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:57,480
Speaker 1: suddenly was confronted directly with the fact that he was

699
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: racist as ship. In the mid nineteen sixties, Jerry Fallwell

700
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 1: hired his first non white employee, the Indonesian musician Paul Tan.

701
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty eight, he opened the Thomas Road Baptist

702
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: Church to black members in nineteen sixty Wait, hold on

703
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: a second. He opened the church to black members in

704
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: sixty eight. When did he talk to Shoeshiner? That was

705
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: like in the somewhere like sixty four or sixty five.

706
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:21,360
Speaker 1: It took him a while, so so he had he

707
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:23,520
Speaker 1: had an epiphany, and then it took him three to

708
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: four years to still change his mind. Again we're talking

709
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:30,320
Speaker 1: these are his reclations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's also

710
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 1: like exactly what we were saying, like, oh, I needed

711
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:34,879
Speaker 1: to first think that black people weren't human too, then

712
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I've learned a powerful lesson. What the funk?

713
00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: I don't buy any of this? Yeah, And it's also

714
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that when he does open his church

715
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: up is like when the Civil rights movement hit that

716
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:47,279
Speaker 1: point of critical mass. Like it's not like he got

717
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 1: on board segregation when it was still like it's one

718
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:52,760
Speaker 1: thing to be like in favor of segregation, then realize

719
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:55,840
Speaker 1: you're wrong at a time when like it matters. Takes

720
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:58,439
Speaker 1: some courage to be like, no, I was wrong. Like

721
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: once the civil rights its movements past its critical point,

722
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 1: he's like, oh shit, I guess this is the way

723
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 1: things are going. I'm gonna open my church up. Yeah, Like, oh,

724
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 1: progress seems to be happening everywhere. Okay, I'll join. Yeah.

725
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 1: It's like it's like being cool with gay marriage in

726
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,800
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen. Yeah, yeah, and that being your first

727
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 1: step there. And the thing is, it's it's weird because

728
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:22,239
Speaker 1: right now everybody talks about like cancel culture and like

729
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:25,240
Speaker 1: oh what you can't be better like change or anything.

730
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 1: And I absolutely think that that is what we want

731
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:32,719
Speaker 1: from people. But I don't know how much of the

732
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 1: story that Jerry fall Will made up about himself is

733
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:41,800
Speaker 1: actually real or true. And that's really what I object to,

734
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 1: not the fact that he changed from being a racist

735
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:47,239
Speaker 1: to not being a racist. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's good

736
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 1: that he got better on segregation, But the question is

737
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:53,280
Speaker 1: do I think that it was a matter of moral

738
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:55,879
Speaker 1: courage and realizing he was wrong, or do I think

739
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:58,800
Speaker 1: it was a matter of he realized where the wind

740
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:00,839
Speaker 1: was a blow in exactly. And I do think in

741
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 1: his head he does believe the version of the story

742
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:05,719
Speaker 1: where he has a change of heart. I do think

743
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:08,120
Speaker 1: he believes that in his head because I think he

744
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,560
Speaker 1: needs to think he's a good person, and people like

745
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:14,840
Speaker 1: that makeup stories to justify himself as like a better person.

746
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:19,799
Speaker 1: Just like he justified burning that house down by they

747
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: were cold inside, they were held inside. Central heating wasn't

748
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 1: around yet, I was being helpful. Yeah, just like his

749
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 1: dad justified shooting at that kid's feet because he had

750
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 1: to deal with a fly. I'm going to use that

751
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 1: that was a joke. Okay, you know, just don't get it. Snowflake, snowflake.

752
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 1: Snowflakes hate being shot at idiots. So um yeah. Jerry

753
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 1: was always adamant that the civil rights movement had no

754
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 1: impact on his decision to integrate his church in school.

755
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,840
Speaker 1: He framed his change as entirely an internal revelation. I

756
00:40:56,920 --> 00:40:58,920
Speaker 1: realized that I was completely wrong. What I had been

757
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: taught was completely wrong. For me. It was a scriptural

758
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 1: and personal realization that segregation was evil. I realized it

759
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 1: was not taught in the Bible. So kind of weird

760
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:11,280
Speaker 1: that he's like, specifically doesn't give credit to the civil

761
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: rights movement. He's like, specifically, none of you made a difference.

762
00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King had nothing to do with me letting

763
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: black people into my church. It was all me, baby,

764
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 1: that's so much more. That's still so racist. Jerry Falwell

765
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 1: had my own civil rights movement in my head, and

766
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 1: it was way better than the weird Like in my version,

767
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: I was the leader. Actually wasn't. M okay, there was

768
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 1: no Malcolm X. There was no one. Really, it was

769
00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: a black panther changed everything. I did a great job.

770
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 1: I did a great job. You're welcome. You're welcome, Jerry Follwell.

771
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:51,360
Speaker 1: Oh boy, yeah so uh. In nineteen seventy one, Jerry

772
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,920
Speaker 1: Falwell started the Lynchburg Baptist College. It was later renamed

773
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,479
Speaker 1: Liberty University. The college was something of a loss leader

774
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: for Fallwell's burgeoning empire, relied heavily on donations and endowments

775
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 1: from major donors, and was a heavy debt for much

776
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:06,319
Speaker 1: of Jerry's tenure. As the head of the school. But

777
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: still it succeeded in providing religious higher education to whole

778
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: generations of Evangelical Christians. All these things would probably have

779
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 1: been enough to keep a normal man occupied his entire life,

780
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 1: and perhaps they would have done so for Jerry Folwell.

781
00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:21,879
Speaker 1: But in nineteen seventy three, something happened that would change

782
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 1: his life in the very essence of American Christianity forever,

783
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade. This landmark

784
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: case established a woman's right to get an abortion without

785
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: excessive governmental interference. Folwell later wrote, when he read about

786
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:39,360
Speaker 1: the ruling in the newspaper quote, I sat there staring

787
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:41,319
Speaker 1: at the Roe v. Wade story, growing more and more

788
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Courts Act, and

789
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.

790
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 1: And when we come back, we're gonna talk a little

791
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 1: bit about the surprising history of how American Evangelical Christians

792
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 1: thought about abortion prior to nineteen seventy three. Don't ly

793
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: me hanging like that. I mean, it's an ad plug time.

794
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 1: You know what is also protected from excessive government interference

795
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 1: The products and services that advertise on our show. Was

796
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 1: that a good I liked it? Thank you, Sophie. Sophie approves, Sophia, Yeah,

797
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 1: no co sign. I feel like you need to have

798
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 1: both the self support all right, yeah, it's a rubber stamp.

799
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:28,800
Speaker 1: This it's like when you need to shoot launch a

800
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:32,400
Speaker 1: nuclear missile from a submarine. Exactly exactly. We can't go,

801
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:36,280
Speaker 1: but now we can. We are carolel sitting a customers.

802
00:43:36,640 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: We've surrounded him. You're your solf surrounded, so frounded and

803
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: and now I'm capable of empathetically viewing women as people.

804
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:50,359
Speaker 1: All the took was it is. You don't even need

805
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: to have a daughter or nothing. I have a sister.

806
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 1: She's a dog. Oh my god, you called Anderson a girl.

807
00:43:57,239 --> 00:44:00,120
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of you. I know I usually call

808
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 1: all dogs boys, but Anderson is a girl. You're right,

809
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:05,720
Speaker 1: we've we've beat that into my head. We should really

810
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: go to ads. This has been taking. Yeah, yeah, all

811
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 1: for all the fans. Anderson is a girl. So stop

812
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,279
Speaker 1: calling her boy on Twitter. Also, stop stop asking me

813
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 1: to post pick. I think a lot of them think

814
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:17,240
Speaker 1: Anderson's my dog. I mean, she she's in your family,

815
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 1: she is in my family. Yeah, oh boy, but I

816
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 1: birth thrown from my forehead. We are zeus okay, ad

817
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:36,399
Speaker 1: break terrible transitions here ads products, We're back now. As

818
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:38,919
Speaker 1: his preaching on segregation probably keyed you went on. Jerry

819
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: Fallwell was not a big fan of the Supreme Court.

820
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 1: He'd been pissed at in nineteen sixty two when they

821
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:46,400
Speaker 1: ruled on Ingle versus Fatality, which was the ruling that

822
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: decided it was unconstitutional for schools to force students to pray.

823
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:51,920
Speaker 1: He wrote of this, when a group of nine idiots

824
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:53,760
Speaker 1: can pass a ruling down so that it is illegal

825
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:55,919
Speaker 1: to read the Bible in our public schools, they need

826
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 1: to be called idiots. But Ingle VI of Italy did

827
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: not convinced Refallwell to get into politics. See for a

828
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:04,720
Speaker 1: very long time in America, it was seen as somewhat foul,

829
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:08,360
Speaker 1: even obscene for pastors to wade directly into national politics.

830
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:11,840
Speaker 1: Sharon Overcast and the evangelical Christian who later worked with

831
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 1: Falwell recalled that prior to the seventies, politics was always

832
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: labeled as dirty, as something to stay out of. For

833
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 1: Fallwell and many other Christian extremists, Roe Vie Wade was

834
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 1: a wake up call I'm going to quote now from

835
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 1: an essay on Jerry Fallwell by Doug Bannwort of the

836
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 1: Western Illinois Historical Review. Many religious conservatives, like Falwell would

837
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:32,440
Speaker 1: later identify the Road Decision as the critical issue that

838
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:35,319
Speaker 1: awakened them from a long political slumber after largely being

839
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 1: inactive in the nineteen sixties. As Fallwell put it, the

840
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 1: decision by the Supreme Court legalizing abortion on demand did

841
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 1: more to destroy our nation than any other decision it

842
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 1: has made. Muehler later called the nineteen seventy three Road

843
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: Decision the stick of dynamite that exploded the issue. For evangelicals,

844
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 1: Roevie Wade was truly explosive, and that it legitimized abortion

845
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 1: into national law, a practice deemed defensive, barbaric, savage, and

846
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 1: a violation of God's precious handiwork here on earth. Not

847
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: only did Rovie Wade provide a wake up called a

848
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 1: Fallwell and religious conservatives, and also resulted in later mobilization

849
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 1: and activism on two closely related areas, gay rights and

850
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:10,520
Speaker 1: women's liberation. Rights for gays and women were often closely

851
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,040
Speaker 1: tied to the abortion issue. As family issues, if women

852
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:15,239
Speaker 1: could get an abortion, no longer did they need a

853
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 1: man to take care of them, No longer would they

854
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 1: be confined to the kitchen, household or local pta meeting.

855
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 1: The newfounded dependence could result in a full frontal assault

856
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: on the traditional nuclear family, which many conservatives believed to

857
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 1: be the way God desired the family structure to look like. Yeah. Also,

858
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 1: Saturday was International Safe Abortion Day, so Apple Happy that

859
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 1: Day to everybody, have a happy that Day. We did

860
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:42,279
Speaker 1: a series two on it on the podcast Private Parts

861
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 1: on Now and you should check it out. Check it

862
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:48,959
Speaker 1: out International Safe Abortion Day. It's a good holiday, better

863
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 1: holiday than International Podcast Day, which it is today. Embery Days,

864
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:57,000
Speaker 1: nationals Something Day. Yeah, it's been like National Siblings daylight

865
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: four times. And I text my brother, who is a

866
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 1: doctor who is not abused. I'm trying to do I'm

867
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:03,920
Speaker 1: tired of doing the same joke where I just take

868
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 1: a picture of an empty chair and I'm like, I

869
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: love my sister. I'm an only child. I'm tired now. Uh.

870
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:16,880
Speaker 1: Jerry got together with several other aggrieved religious people in

871
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 1: order to fight back against the Supreme Court's overreach. One

872
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: of these people was Paul way Rich, a Catholic, and

873
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:26,319
Speaker 1: another was Howard Phillips, a Jew. Together they formed a

874
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:30,839
Speaker 1: political action group called the Moral Majority in nineteen seventy nine,

875
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:33,759
Speaker 1: and Howard, yeah, Philip seemed to mostly be there. No,

876
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: we're not just Christians, I know. We got ashamed of him. Yeah,

877
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:42,520
Speaker 1: he's pretty lame. So the Moral Majority was formed specifically

878
00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 1: to lobby to end abortion, reinstate school prayer, and force

879
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 1: men and women back into traditional gender roles. Their goal

880
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 1: was nothing less than to legislate fundamentalist Christian morality is

881
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 1: the law of the land, and most sources you'll read

882
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: on this, including Michael Winters, will note that Rob Wade

883
00:47:57,120 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 1: was the catalyst for all this, but not everyone agrees

884
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:02,400
Speaker 1: on that point. Other researchers will point out that segregation

885
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 1: may itself have been a more direct inspiration for the

886
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 1: formation of the Moral Majority than abortion. Randall Balmer, a

887
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: professor at Dartmouth University and a historian, calls the idea

888
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:14,280
Speaker 1: that abortion was the inciting incident for the Moral Majority

889
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 1: one of the most durable myths in modern history. It

890
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: is certainly true and documented beyond debate, that abortion was

891
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 1: the primary issue the Moral Majority put at the center

892
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 1: of their activism. They even called themselves new abolitionists and

893
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:30,160
Speaker 1: their quest to end abortion. The act of comparing themselves

894
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 1: to anti slavery crusaders take some enormous balls. Given what

895
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:36,720
Speaker 1: I'm about to read next quote, the abortion myth quickly

896
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:40,240
Speaker 1: collapses under historical scrutiny. In fact, it wasn't until nineteen

897
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:43,359
Speaker 1: sixty nine, a full six years after Row, that evangelical

898
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:46,240
Speaker 1: leaders at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich seized

899
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:49,200
Speaker 1: on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying

900
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 1: cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why

901
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:55,440
Speaker 1: because the anti abortion crusade was more palatable than the

902
00:48:55,440 --> 00:49:02,480
Speaker 1: religious rights real motive protecting segregated schools. Say, yeah, well,

903
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,760
Speaker 1: it's a tough competition. Who do we hate more women

904
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:10,759
Speaker 1: or black people? Oh? My god, black women. Yeah, that

905
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:16,440
Speaker 1: that is the number one hated group. Yeah. So, Bomber

906
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 1: points out with exhaustive documentation that throughout the nineteen sixties

907
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:22,080
Speaker 1: and early seventies, abortion was not a big deal for

908
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 1: most Christians, even fundamentalist ones. In nineteen sixty eight, the

909
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 1: Christian Medical Society and Christianity Today wrote that abortion was

910
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 1: not sinful and that quote, individual health, family welfare, and

911
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 1: social responsibility could all justify the termination of a pregnancy.

912
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy one, the Southern Baptist Convention had passed

913
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 1: a resolution stating, quote Southern Baptists to work for legislation

914
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 1: that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions

915
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 1: as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and

916
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:55,840
Speaker 1: carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage the emotional, mental,

917
00:49:55,880 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: and physical health of the mother relatively woke for Christians today.

918
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:03,560
Speaker 1: At least, the Convention reaffirmed this decision twice after Roe v.

919
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:06,800
Speaker 1: Wade in nineteen seventy four and in nineteen seventy six,

920
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:09,600
Speaker 1: and the immediate wake of the ruling. W A. Criswell,

921
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: the Convention's former president and one of the most prominent

922
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 1: evangelical Christians in America, said, I have always felt that

923
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: it was only after a child was born and had

924
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 1: a life separate from its mother that it became an

925
00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: individual person. And it has always therefore seemed to me

926
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:24,120
Speaker 1: that what is best for the mother and for the

927
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:29,200
Speaker 1: future should be allowed. Hallelujah, Yep, things really took a turn.

928
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 1: Abortion had been a significant issue for Catholics for quite

929
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:36,120
Speaker 1: some time. However, so it's like Evangelical Protestants didn't really

930
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:39,560
Speaker 1: care about abortion prior to nineteen seventy nine. Catholics, you know,

931
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:43,600
Speaker 1: they didn't. They weren't down with condoms. I mean, they

932
00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:46,800
Speaker 1: certainly weren't down with abortion. The church has been pretty

933
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: consistently anti choice for quite a while. But American Protestants

934
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:52,359
Speaker 1: and Evangelicals didn't really care about the matter one way

935
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:54,640
Speaker 1: or the other. What many of them did care about, however,

936
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:57,800
Speaker 1: was integration because they were Southerners in the nineteen sixties

937
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: and seventies and just really, really racist. I'm gonna quote

938
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:04,799
Speaker 1: from Balmer again. In May nineteen sixty nine, a group

939
00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 1: of African American parents in Holmes County, Mississippi, sued the

940
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:10,719
Speaker 1: Treasury Department to prevent three new whites only K through

941
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:14,320
Speaker 1: twelve private academies from securing full tax exempt status, arguing

942
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:18,239
Speaker 1: that their discriminatory policies prevented them from being considered charitable institutions.

943
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:20,600
Speaker 1: The schools have been founded in the mid nineteen sixties

944
00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:23,080
Speaker 1: in response to the desegregation of public schools set in

945
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 1: motion by Brown versus the Board of Education decision in

946
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:28,399
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four. In nineteen sixty nine, the first year

947
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 1: of desegregation, the number of white students enrolled in public

948
00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 1: schools in Holmes County dropped from seven hundred and seventy

949
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:36,880
Speaker 1: one to eight. The following year, that number fell to zero.

950
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:40,040
Speaker 1: So one of the responses of the Christian community throughout

951
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:42,560
Speaker 1: the South was to open private schools so that they

952
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 1: did not have to If they were private religiou schools,

953
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:46,960
Speaker 1: you can keep black people out and then we can

954
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 1: still have our whites just like just like Jesus intended,

955
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:52,879
Speaker 1: and then allow of everyone in stages. Yeah, it's kind

956
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 1: of the birth of the private religious school system in America.

957
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 1: Excluding black people. Fuck pretty cool in Green versus Kennedy.

958
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:06,400
Speaker 1: David Kennedy was Secretary of Treasury at the time decided

959
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy, the plaintiffs won a preliminary injunction which

960
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 1: denied the segregation academies tax exempt status until further review.

961
00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:15,279
Speaker 1: In the meantime, the government was solidifying its position on

962
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:18,279
Speaker 1: such schools. Later that year, President Richard Nixon ordered the

963
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 1: Internal Revenue Service to enact a new policy denying taxes

964
00:52:21,840 --> 00:52:25,080
Speaker 1: exemptions to all segregated schools in the United States. Wow,

965
00:52:25,120 --> 00:52:27,920
Speaker 1: and she did a good thing. Yeah, Nixon was actually

966
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:31,760
Speaker 1: pretty good on that issue. Was not really like the religions. Again,

967
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: this is before the religious rite exists. Like fundamentalist Christians

968
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 1: are not a voting block at this point in any

969
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 1: meaningful But Nixon also like dropped a lot of slurs

970
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:43,200
Speaker 1: and stuff. That's why I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, but

971
00:52:43,239 --> 00:52:46,840
Speaker 1: he didn't give a shit about God. I mean, I

972
00:52:47,160 --> 00:52:51,960
Speaker 1: meant in terms of black people. I just didn't know. Yeah,

973
00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:54,480
Speaker 1: he would follow that, you know, he was good about

974
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 1: this one. Yeah. Nixon's one of those weird ones where

975
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:00,919
Speaker 1: it's like you can listen to hours of him using

976
00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:05,439
Speaker 1: racial slurs and then he'll ban racist schools from being

977
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:08,120
Speaker 1: tax exempt and you can listen to him like threatened

978
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:10,400
Speaker 1: to have journalists murdered, and he'll start the e p

979
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:14,120
Speaker 1: A too. He's a confusing one. He's a confusing one.

980
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:18,920
Speaker 1: Uh now, Um. Reading all of this added some additional

981
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:21,319
Speaker 1: context to something I'd read in God's Right Hand, which

982
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:24,320
Speaker 1: definitely takes the the angle that like the moral majority

983
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 1: was all about abortion. Like this, Balmer is kind of

984
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:30,040
Speaker 1: an opposed to other scholars when he puts segregation at

985
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:33,200
Speaker 1: the center of why the Christian right becomes a political thing.

986
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 1: But it did add some extra context to this quote.

987
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:38,680
Speaker 1: Follwell had been profoundly disturbed by the actions of the

988
00:53:38,680 --> 00:53:41,680
Speaker 1: federal government legalizing abortion, removing prayer from the public school

989
00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 1: sending the I R s after Christian academies. To him,

990
00:53:44,520 --> 00:53:46,799
Speaker 1: this amounted to a political assault on his turf, the

991
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:48,680
Speaker 1: moral fiber of the nation, and he could begin to

992
00:53:48,760 --> 00:53:51,400
Speaker 1: envisit in politics as the means to beating back the assault.

993
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:53,839
Speaker 1: So this is one of the weird that God's Right

994
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:56,239
Speaker 1: Hand is like a really good biography by Winters. It

995
00:53:56,239 --> 00:53:58,319
Speaker 1: has a lot of really good info in it, but

996
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:01,040
Speaker 1: Winters is also kind of comes across is Well. He's

997
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:04,320
Speaker 1: critical of a lot that Fallwell did fundamentally sympathetic to

998
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:06,360
Speaker 1: the man as a human being, and I think he

999
00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:08,760
Speaker 1: misses like the fact that he phrases it as sending

1000
00:54:08,760 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: the I R s after Christian academies, And I'm sure

1001
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 1: that's how Fallwell would like to report it, Like what

1002
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:16,279
Speaker 1: fall what was piste about? Was them stopping Christians from

1003
00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:20,880
Speaker 1: segregating schools. Yeah, and it is something that Winters doesn't

1004
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:24,320
Speaker 1: really touch on enough. But I I really think Balmer's

1005
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:26,399
Speaker 1: probably on the right side of this one. But I'm

1006
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:29,880
Speaker 1: not a scholar, so um yeah. Balmer makes a strong

1007
00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:32,279
Speaker 1: case that the birth of the Christian Right as a

1008
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:35,920
Speaker 1: political movement was very much inspired by evangelical religious leaders

1009
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:38,040
Speaker 1: to keep black people out of their churches and schools.

1010
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 1: Quote the Green v. Connolly ruling provided a necessary first step.

1011
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 1: It captured the attention of evangelical leaders, especially as the

1012
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:47,600
Speaker 1: i r S began sending questionnaires to church related segregation academies,

1013
00:54:47,680 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 1: including Fallwell's own Lynchburg Christian School, inquiring about their racial policies.

1014
00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:55,520
Speaker 1: Fallwell was furious in some states. He famously complained, it's

1015
00:54:55,520 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 1: easier to open a massage parlor than a Christian school.

1016
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:02,080
Speaker 1: Is that massage parlor open to people of all races? Jerry?

1017
00:55:03,520 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 1: Because if it is, I don't have any problem with it. Yeah.

1018
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:07,440
Speaker 1: Not if you could help it, Yeah, not if he

1019
00:55:07,480 --> 00:55:10,600
Speaker 1: could help it. One such school, Bob Jones University, a

1020
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:14,400
Speaker 1: fundamentalist college in Greenville, South Carolina, was especially obdurate. The

1021
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:15,960
Speaker 1: i R S had sent its first letter to Bob

1022
00:55:16,040 --> 00:55:18,920
Speaker 1: Jones University in November nineteen seventy to ascertain whether or

1023
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:21,440
Speaker 1: not it discriminated on the basis of race. The school

1024
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 1: responded defiantly. It did not admit African Americans. It wasn't

1025
00:55:26,400 --> 00:55:31,600
Speaker 1: isn't even they You couldn't be taking someone of a

1026
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:35,480
Speaker 1: different race. Two, I think what like their school stuff

1027
00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:39,160
Speaker 1: even recently right that they were in the news for that. Yeah,

1028
00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:42,120
Speaker 1: that's continued up until the modern era. Yeah, they Bob

1029
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 1: Jones really sticks by segregation. Kind of wild because this

1030
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:49,719
Speaker 1: is so recent. Yeah, the the birth of the religious

1031
00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:52,640
Speaker 1: right is very much tight into Bob Jones University wanting

1032
00:55:52,680 --> 00:55:55,080
Speaker 1: to be as racist to school as they can possibly be.

1033
00:55:56,160 --> 00:56:00,200
Speaker 1: Cool mission cool mission Now. Bob Jones University did try

1034
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:01,920
Speaker 1: to throw the I R. S a bone to maintain

1035
00:56:01,920 --> 00:56:05,200
Speaker 1: their tax exempt status. They took in a single black student.

1036
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:07,480
Speaker 1: He dropped out a month later for reasons that I'm

1037
00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:11,399
Speaker 1: sure are completely unfathomable to everybody listening. Yeah, why would

1038
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:13,880
Speaker 1: that have happened? Yeah, well, he didn't like love the

1039
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:16,319
Speaker 1: new school. That's so crazy. It seems like he would

1040
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:18,200
Speaker 1: have been totally comfortable things like it would have been

1041
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:21,399
Speaker 1: a great time for him. Yeah. In nineteen seventy five,

1042
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:23,719
Speaker 1: the school was finally forced to admit black students on

1043
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:26,040
Speaker 1: a whiter basis, but they qualified that they were only

1044
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 1: admitting married black people. The fear was that unmarried black

1045
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 1: students might wind up fucking white students. Couldn't have that.

1046
00:56:35,719 --> 00:56:40,560
Speaker 1: Interracial dating was strictly prohibited, so in nineteen seventy six,

1047
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 1: the I R s who are the heroes of the

1048
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 1: story today, rescinded Bob Jones University's tax exempt status. Good, yes, yeah,

1049
00:56:49,680 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 1: the hey man, they're on the right side of this one.

1050
00:56:53,000 --> 00:56:55,600
Speaker 1: Paul way Rich and Jerry Fallwell were deeply unhappy at

1051
00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:57,880
Speaker 1: all this government overreach. They chose to focus on the

1052
00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:01,080
Speaker 1: Carter administration, which actually doesn't a lot of sense. The

1053
00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:04,839
Speaker 1: Nixon administration had started going after evangelical schools, Bob Jones

1054
00:57:04,920 --> 00:57:07,520
Speaker 1: University had lost its taxignum status more than a year

1055
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 1: before Carter took office, but way Rich and Fallwell ignored

1056
00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:12,960
Speaker 1: all this. They made it their overwriting goal to ensure

1057
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:18,960
Speaker 1: a conservative kicked Carter out of office. Interesting that fact

1058
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:22,280
Speaker 1: they do an attack the Republican Party for their role

1059
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 1: in this. They just go after Jimmy Carter. Interesting kind

1060
00:57:26,600 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 1: of makes you wonder if maybe it had more to

1061
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:32,680
Speaker 1: do with the fact that these were Richmond than Christians.

1062
00:57:32,720 --> 00:57:35,760
Speaker 1: But that's just a conspiracy theory. On my part, I

1063
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:39,400
Speaker 1: mean being rich, like crazy rich in this country is

1064
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:44,320
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory. Now, the leaders of the Moral Majority

1065
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:47,160
Speaker 1: knew that segregation was not exactly a major vote winning

1066
00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:49,600
Speaker 1: issue in nineteen seventy nine. They were not going to

1067
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:53,080
Speaker 1: ignite an evangelical political movement by focusing on racism or

1068
00:57:53,080 --> 00:57:55,120
Speaker 1: any of the other issues they were most obsessed with

1069
00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:57,720
Speaker 1: at the time. Way Rich and Folwell were also both

1070
00:57:57,720 --> 00:58:00,320
Speaker 1: opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment. They sup ordered the

1071
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:03,520
Speaker 1: banning of pornography. But as way Rich later recalled, I

1072
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:05,640
Speaker 1: was trying to get these people interested in those issues

1073
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:09,320
Speaker 1: and I utterly failed. So they're trying to like get

1074
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:12,000
Speaker 1: the religious right on board with like banning the e

1075
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:16,160
Speaker 1: r A, banning pornography, allowing schools to segregate, and like

1076
00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:18,800
Speaker 1: they really they can't get anybody on board. Nobody wants to,

1077
00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:22,400
Speaker 1: like anybody hype about these issues. People are like yeah, yeah, yeah.

1078
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:26,959
Speaker 1: It was a different time. But abortion provided the Moral

1079
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:30,360
Speaker 1: Majority with an easy cause to crusade against a banner

1080
00:58:30,520 --> 00:58:34,480
Speaker 1: other propagandized Christians could rally behind. Stop killing babies is

1081
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:36,920
Speaker 1: an easier battle cry than keep black people out of

1082
00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:41,680
Speaker 1: our schools. So that is why they pick abortion as

1083
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:44,600
Speaker 1: at least the public face of the movement, and this

1084
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:47,120
Speaker 1: brings up the question, how did the Moral majority organize

1085
00:58:47,160 --> 00:58:50,120
Speaker 1: evangelicals against abortion if abortion hadn't been a big part

1086
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:53,360
Speaker 1: of evangelical politics prayer to that point. The answer to this,

1087
00:58:53,520 --> 00:58:56,480
Speaker 1: as with so many great questions in American history, boils

1088
00:58:56,520 --> 00:59:01,280
Speaker 1: down to they hated women being free. Dum. Yeah. Of

1089
00:59:01,320 --> 00:59:03,320
Speaker 1: course that isn't a great vote getter either, So they

1090
00:59:03,360 --> 00:59:06,160
Speaker 1: framed their opposition to abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment

1091
00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:10,280
Speaker 1: as being pro family. There we go. That's how you

1092
00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:15,200
Speaker 1: get a fucking I'm gonna quote Doug Banmart again. Over

1093
00:59:15,200 --> 00:59:17,720
Speaker 1: the course of the nineteen seventies, ministers connected defense of

1094
00:59:17,720 --> 00:59:21,320
Speaker 1: the traditional family with opposition to abortion, feminism, and gay rights.

1095
00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:24,120
Speaker 1: Such rights, to those in the moral majority, attacked the

1096
00:59:24,120 --> 00:59:26,880
Speaker 1: tried and true social order that had persevered for generations.

1097
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:29,840
Speaker 1: According to the Moral majority, who could possibly be anti family.

1098
00:59:30,120 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 1: In addition, it was this return to moral sanity that

1099
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:34,440
Speaker 1: was trying to restore America from the upheaval of the

1100
00:59:34,520 --> 00:59:37,800
Speaker 1: recent past. Rather than speak out directly against gay's, feminists

1101
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:40,680
Speaker 1: and abortionists, they often delivered the same message shrouded and

1102
00:59:40,720 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 1: pro family terms. For example, Moral Majority leaders defined traditional

1103
00:59:44,640 --> 00:59:48,000
Speaker 1: families as those with two heterosexual parents. This carried significant

1104
00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:50,800
Speaker 1: appeal among conservatives in the wake of the nineteen sixties.

1105
00:59:51,320 --> 00:59:53,280
Speaker 1: By framing the issue was defense of the family, the

1106
00:59:53,360 --> 00:59:56,240
Speaker 1: leaders of the Christian right effectively turned liberals into enemies

1107
00:59:56,240 --> 00:59:58,160
Speaker 1: of the family, at least in the eyes of millions

1108
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:00,160
Speaker 1: of voters, and this is what led them to their

1109
01:00:00,240 --> 01:00:03,520
Speaker 1: violent opposition of the Equal Rights Amendment. This was the

1110
01:00:03,560 --> 01:00:06,120
Speaker 1: first test of the moral majority. Jerry Folwell Warren, the

1111
01:00:06,160 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 1: passage of the amendment could quote sanction homosexual marriage, send

1112
01:00:09,800 --> 01:00:13,120
Speaker 1: mothers and girls into combat, and generally injure the dignity

1113
01:00:13,120 --> 01:00:18,480
Speaker 1: of the traditional family. Gasp, yeah, you say, as you

1114
01:00:18,640 --> 01:00:24,200
Speaker 1: hug your traditional family member Anderson the dog. Now for reference,

1115
01:00:24,240 --> 01:00:26,000
Speaker 1: I think I should read out the main portions of

1116
01:00:26,000 --> 01:00:29,080
Speaker 1: the suggested amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment. That's very scary,

1117
01:00:29,200 --> 01:00:32,720
Speaker 1: family destroying amendment. Section one, A quality of rights under

1118
01:00:32,720 --> 01:00:34,600
Speaker 1: the law shall not be denied or abridged by the

1119
01:00:34,640 --> 01:00:36,960
Speaker 1: United States or by any State on account of sex.

1120
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:39,440
Speaker 1: Section two, the Congress shall have the power to enforce,

1121
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:42,880
Speaker 1: by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Section three.

1122
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:45,240
Speaker 1: This Amendment shall take effect two years after the date

1123
01:00:45,240 --> 01:00:48,400
Speaker 1: of ratification, So that I mean that that likes the

1124
01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:54,200
Speaker 1: family right out. Yeah yeah, yeah, that that families should

1125
01:00:54,200 --> 01:01:01,720
Speaker 1: be destroyed. Amendment to the amendment was really extreme. Yeah,

1126
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:05,200
Speaker 1: so obviously we couldn't have that happen. Fallwall and his

1127
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:07,840
Speaker 1: fellow conservatives were terrified that the r A would lead

1128
01:01:07,840 --> 01:01:11,440
Speaker 1: to nightmares like government funded daycare and paternity leave. These

1129
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:13,400
Speaker 1: are two things that they cited directly is why the

1130
01:01:13,600 --> 01:01:16,840
Speaker 1: r A was bad. It just seems like, how can

1131
01:01:16,880 --> 01:01:19,800
Speaker 1: you not feel like the biggest nerd when you're like,

1132
01:01:20,720 --> 01:01:25,640
Speaker 1: I'm anti porn, I'm anti like all the things you're

1133
01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:30,280
Speaker 1: anti makes you such a fucking nerd? Does that party

1134
01:01:30,320 --> 01:01:33,640
Speaker 1: not ever being like, dudes, we're doing the nerdiest shit

1135
01:01:33,720 --> 01:01:36,480
Speaker 1: out here. What are we doing? They're keeping women under

1136
01:01:36,520 --> 01:01:39,400
Speaker 1: lock and key, so crazy to me, Like it's like,

1137
01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:42,320
Speaker 1: if you're a reasonable person, being a post government funded

1138
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:47,320
Speaker 1: daycare and paternity leave sounds like lunacy. But the fear

1139
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:50,200
Speaker 1: among conservatives was that like, if there's government funded daycare,

1140
01:01:50,400 --> 01:01:54,120
Speaker 1: women can have jobs and then they weren't. Yeah, then

1141
01:01:54,160 --> 01:01:57,600
Speaker 1: they won't be like reliant on a man for everything.

1142
01:01:58,200 --> 01:02:01,160
Speaker 1: And if there's paternity leave, then dads could take care

1143
01:02:01,200 --> 01:02:05,360
Speaker 1: of kids too, and then moms could have careers and

1144
01:02:05,400 --> 01:02:08,960
Speaker 1: be independent people. Just defending gender roles is so nerdy too.

1145
01:02:09,320 --> 01:02:11,760
Speaker 1: It's another to be like, this is what I care about.

1146
01:02:11,880 --> 01:02:14,720
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that the man does man

1147
01:02:14,760 --> 01:02:16,960
Speaker 1: things and the woman does woman things, and we've decided

1148
01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:20,280
Speaker 1: what those things are. Like, how do you even get

1149
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:22,400
Speaker 1: how do you even get enough energy to care about that?

1150
01:02:22,720 --> 01:02:25,040
Speaker 1: It's the only thing you care about. If you're the

1151
01:02:25,080 --> 01:02:27,400
Speaker 1: kind of person who cares about that, It's just so

1152
01:02:27,440 --> 01:02:30,120
Speaker 1: crazy to me. I'm like, oh, live your life. Yeah,

1153
01:02:30,240 --> 01:02:31,960
Speaker 1: that's the like, the core of this is a bunch

1154
01:02:32,000 --> 01:02:34,600
Speaker 1: of people who like can't fucking deal with other people

1155
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:36,680
Speaker 1: wanting a different thing out of life than they do,

1156
01:02:37,280 --> 01:02:40,840
Speaker 1: which is really usually the core of like six of

1157
01:02:40,840 --> 01:02:47,400
Speaker 1: Bastardy speaking of a gigantic bastard Philish lifely a Christian

1158
01:02:47,440 --> 01:02:49,760
Speaker 1: activist and a gigantic piece of ship, wrote that the

1159
01:02:49,800 --> 01:02:52,880
Speaker 1: Equal Rights Amendment would be quote the first anti family

1160
01:02:52,880 --> 01:02:56,640
Speaker 1: amendment in the Constitution. It would protect biggmists, legalized prostitution,

1161
01:02:56,720 --> 01:02:59,520
Speaker 1: and defaying rape laws. The social and political goals of E. R.

1162
01:02:59,600 --> 01:03:03,880
Speaker 1: Rayer's a radical, irrational and unacceptable to Americans. In the

1163
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:06,760
Speaker 1: essay where she wrote this, she leftly created the acronym

1164
01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:12,000
Speaker 1: stop e R A stop stood for stop taking our privileges.

1165
01:03:12,160 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 1: She made an acronym with the word that the acronym

1166
01:03:14,760 --> 01:03:17,440
Speaker 1: is in the agram. That's like saying the title of

1167
01:03:17,480 --> 01:03:21,160
Speaker 1: the movie in the movie, Yeah, we're wearing a band

1168
01:03:21,280 --> 01:03:24,120
Speaker 1: shirt to the concert. Like no, I just don't that.

1169
01:03:26,840 --> 01:03:29,400
Speaker 1: And so Jerry Fallwell and his comrades leapt into the

1170
01:03:29,440 --> 01:03:31,920
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty election with the intent to restore their version

1171
01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:34,560
Speaker 1: of God to a position of primacy in American politics.

1172
01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:38,400
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty, Folwell told his congregation, we're fighting a

1173
01:03:38,480 --> 01:03:40,720
Speaker 1: holy war. What's happened to America is that the wicked

1174
01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:42,720
Speaker 1: or bearing rule. We have to lead the nation back

1175
01:03:42,720 --> 01:03:45,080
Speaker 1: to the moral stance that made America great. We have

1176
01:03:45,120 --> 01:03:48,840
Speaker 1: to influence on those who govern us. Just trying to

1177
01:03:48,880 --> 01:03:53,439
Speaker 1: make America great. Everyone's having fun, fuck them. Yeah, yeah,

1178
01:03:53,760 --> 01:03:57,320
Speaker 1: this does happen, And like, well, no, I guess nineteen

1179
01:03:57,320 --> 01:03:59,080
Speaker 1: eighty was. It was about to be a fun year.

1180
01:03:59,640 --> 01:04:03,680
Speaker 1: I mean, and people everywhere disco, Yeah, coming off of

1181
01:04:03,720 --> 01:04:06,320
Speaker 1: the fun ass rock and roll seventies. Yeah, people are

1182
01:04:06,360 --> 01:04:10,360
Speaker 1: just having a good time. Thery nerds are out here

1183
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:13,800
Speaker 1: trying to ruin it for everything. It's that pendulum you have,

1184
01:04:13,840 --> 01:04:18,560
Speaker 1: like sexual liberation and like the civil rights movement and stuff,

1185
01:04:18,920 --> 01:04:21,800
Speaker 1: and then all of the assholes organized to like push

1186
01:04:21,800 --> 01:04:24,680
Speaker 1: the pendulum back. It's kind of like what's happening now,

1187
01:04:24,840 --> 01:04:28,120
Speaker 1: except it happened earlier. I know. It's just upsetting. It's like,

1188
01:04:28,200 --> 01:04:31,400
Speaker 1: let women work, they'll just buy stuff for you. Yeah.

1189
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:33,600
Speaker 1: That women are so nice, you know what I mean,

1190
01:04:33,840 --> 01:04:37,560
Speaker 1: Like like we're so nice. Yeah. You just you just

1191
01:04:37,600 --> 01:04:40,360
Speaker 1: want to participate in the flawless system of capitalism like

1192
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:42,920
Speaker 1: everybody else. We just want to buy ship. We just

1193
01:04:42,920 --> 01:04:44,560
Speaker 1: want to buy ship. Weren't even allowed to have our

1194
01:04:44,600 --> 01:04:48,680
Speaker 1: own credit cards to like the seventies. Well that's a

1195
01:04:48,680 --> 01:04:54,760
Speaker 1: fair rule, because bitches be shopping. Am I right? Shopping?

1196
01:04:55,320 --> 01:04:57,400
Speaker 1: I That's going to be the core of my stand

1197
01:04:57,440 --> 01:04:59,840
Speaker 1: up act. I don't think anybody's joked about that before.

1198
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:01,800
Speaker 1: It's gonna bring new grounds, So you should really talk

1199
01:05:01,800 --> 01:05:04,280
Speaker 1: about the differences between black people and white people. I'm

1200
01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:07,280
Speaker 1: gonna do that when I get my new Netflix show canceled,

1201
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:11,160
Speaker 1: really bold title, really gonna break new ground with that.

1202
01:05:11,760 --> 01:05:14,880
Speaker 1: I can't wait. Or something to do with safe Spaces.

1203
01:05:15,360 --> 01:05:16,920
Speaker 1: One of those two is going to be the title

1204
01:05:16,960 --> 01:05:19,800
Speaker 1: for sure. It will really be groundbreaking. Can't wait to

1205
01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:22,920
Speaker 1: open for you. I'm gonna get eight million dollars to

1206
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:26,000
Speaker 1: complain about how I've been canceled by social justice warriors.

1207
01:05:27,040 --> 01:05:30,480
Speaker 1: Miles performs in Pennsylvania. He opens for Lucy k and

1208
01:05:30,560 --> 01:05:34,280
Speaker 1: as He's opens from Miles. Oh great, yeah, yeah, that's

1209
01:05:34,280 --> 01:05:36,640
Speaker 1: how you want opening for you with the season. Sorry, okay,

1210
01:05:36,720 --> 01:05:41,600
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that's how Cansylvania works. I mean it is,

1211
01:05:42,520 --> 01:05:46,880
Speaker 1: that's literally how it works. Yeah. So Osby still performs

1212
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:52,600
Speaker 1: on Cansylvania because it's Cansylvania. I mean he's huge there, Yeah,

1213
01:05:53,000 --> 01:05:55,960
Speaker 1: just stumbling onto the stage, can't see anything because he

1214
01:05:56,080 --> 01:06:02,760
Speaker 1: I mean, he's crushing it or he's attempting to, but

1215
01:06:03,440 --> 01:06:05,560
Speaker 1: he's blind, so he can't make his way up on

1216
01:06:05,560 --> 01:06:12,280
Speaker 1: to the stage. Pennsylvania will cloud for that. So uh.

1217
01:06:12,280 --> 01:06:15,000
Speaker 1: When Jerry Fallwell spoke, millions of people listened. At the

1218
01:06:15,000 --> 01:06:17,080
Speaker 1: start of the nineteen eighties, his TV show was hosted

1219
01:06:17,080 --> 01:06:19,920
Speaker 1: on three and seventy three stations, more than Johnny Carson's

1220
01:06:19,920 --> 01:06:22,600
Speaker 1: Tonight Show. His church, the Thomas Road Baptist Church, had

1221
01:06:22,640 --> 01:06:24,800
Speaker 1: grown to become one of the very first megachurches with

1222
01:06:24,880 --> 01:06:28,080
Speaker 1: regular attendants of more than seventeen thousand. But the true

1223
01:06:28,080 --> 01:06:30,640
Speaker 1: genius of Jerry Fallwell and guiding the Moral Majority was

1224
01:06:30,680 --> 01:06:34,000
Speaker 1: his ability to unify different types of Christians together. Catholics

1225
01:06:34,000 --> 01:06:37,160
Speaker 1: and Protestants did not traditionally see one another as groups

1226
01:06:37,160 --> 01:06:40,760
Speaker 1: with much in common. They regularly found themselves in opposition. Likewise,

1227
01:06:40,800 --> 01:06:45,120
Speaker 1: mainstream Protestants, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, and Fundamentalists were all distinct groups

1228
01:06:45,120 --> 01:06:47,680
Speaker 1: of Christians, and they had no real history of organizing

1229
01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:51,400
Speaker 1: together towards a common purpose. Fallwell succeeded in welding them

1230
01:06:51,400 --> 01:06:54,000
Speaker 1: together for the first time. He was criticized by the

1231
01:06:54,000 --> 01:06:57,360
Speaker 1: president of Bob Jones University for creating an unholy alliance

1232
01:06:57,400 --> 01:07:01,360
Speaker 1: with the evil Catholics. It's weird to relieve, like that's

1233
01:07:01,400 --> 01:07:03,760
Speaker 1: where a religion used to be in America, where somebody

1234
01:07:03,840 --> 01:07:06,320
Speaker 1: was like, I wanna get all the Christians together to

1235
01:07:06,320 --> 01:07:09,280
Speaker 1: stop people from letting women work, and someone's like, but

1236
01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:12,240
Speaker 1: we're gonna work with the Catholics to do that. It's hilarious,

1237
01:07:12,440 --> 01:07:15,800
Speaker 1: good nuts. So uh, fall will reply to that. I'm

1238
01:07:15,840 --> 01:07:20,160
Speaker 1: indeed considered to be dangerous to liberals, feminists, abortionists, and homosexuals,

1239
01:07:20,160 --> 01:07:22,760
Speaker 1: but not to Bible believe in Christians, this time preaching

1240
01:07:22,760 --> 01:07:24,480
Speaker 1: would not be enough. It is my duty as a

1241
01:07:24,560 --> 01:07:26,800
Speaker 1: Christian to apply the truths of Scripture to every act

1242
01:07:26,800 --> 01:07:33,120
Speaker 1: of government. Yeah, no, I asked you. Yeah, damn, why

1243
01:07:33,120 --> 01:07:35,760
Speaker 1: are you volunteering for a job that, Liz literally does

1244
01:07:35,840 --> 01:07:39,720
Speaker 1: not exist. You just appointed yourself when we started pastoring

1245
01:07:39,720 --> 01:07:42,320
Speaker 1: on a huge as level. Yeah, he's like, well, this

1246
01:07:42,360 --> 01:07:44,959
Speaker 1: is what I do now. No one fucking asked you. Yeah,

1247
01:07:45,120 --> 01:07:48,560
Speaker 1: this this has worked in Virginia, so clearly the entire

1248
01:07:48,600 --> 01:07:52,400
Speaker 1: country should have to have me as their pastor. Yeah.

1249
01:07:52,400 --> 01:07:55,200
Speaker 1: I love that. Like this is the like we have

1250
01:07:55,280 --> 01:07:57,280
Speaker 1: to apply. It's my duty to apply the truths of

1251
01:07:57,320 --> 01:07:59,480
Speaker 1: Scripture to every act of government. It's like, no, dude,

1252
01:07:59,480 --> 01:08:01,680
Speaker 1: Like when we started this whole country thing, like the

1253
01:08:01,680 --> 01:08:03,680
Speaker 1: whole idea was that, like that's not how we're gonna

1254
01:08:03,680 --> 01:08:06,440
Speaker 1: do it. We're not going to have religion be involved

1255
01:08:06,440 --> 01:08:10,720
Speaker 1: in politics. No, bitch, your duty is to like groom yourself,

1256
01:08:11,400 --> 01:08:14,480
Speaker 1: go it out into the world and be someone that

1257
01:08:14,520 --> 01:08:19,080
Speaker 1: improves it. And that's literally it. Yeah, just that's it.

1258
01:08:19,360 --> 01:08:23,880
Speaker 1: Stay away from everybody, pay taxes, and don't assault people. Yeah,

1259
01:08:24,200 --> 01:08:26,360
Speaker 1: that's really the only goals. We want you to work,

1260
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:30,280
Speaker 1: we ask of anyone, That's all we wanted. Don't fucking

1261
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:33,439
Speaker 1: feed people their cats and ship like that. That's I mean?

1262
01:08:33,520 --> 01:08:35,800
Speaker 1: Is that a too too big an ask? Was too

1263
01:08:35,800 --> 01:08:39,200
Speaker 1: big of an ask for his dad? Big cat feeder,

1264
01:08:39,280 --> 01:08:45,320
Speaker 1: two people guy? Yeah. So. Jerry Fallwell's chief innovation, the

1265
01:08:45,320 --> 01:08:47,680
Speaker 1: one which is shaped American politics ever since, was to

1266
01:08:47,720 --> 01:08:50,679
Speaker 1: convince all Christian conservatives that they're really on the same side.

1267
01:08:50,800 --> 01:08:53,840
Speaker 1: Fighting for the sanctity of the family, abortion, opposition to

1268
01:08:53,880 --> 01:08:56,320
Speaker 1: gay rights, advocating for the return of prayer in school.

1269
01:08:56,520 --> 01:08:59,320
Speaker 1: All these things can be bundled together as saving the family.

1270
01:08:59,680 --> 01:09:02,639
Speaker 1: Fall All wrote, the family is the fundamental building block

1271
01:09:02,640 --> 01:09:05,000
Speaker 1: and basic unit of our society, and its continued health

1272
01:09:05,040 --> 01:09:07,760
Speaker 1: is a prerequisite for a healthy and prosperous nation. No

1273
01:09:07,960 --> 01:09:10,400
Speaker 1: nation has ever been stronger than the families within her.

1274
01:09:11,439 --> 01:09:14,599
Speaker 1: And so the moral majority set to work. They start, honestly,

1275
01:09:14,640 --> 01:09:17,080
Speaker 1: just reconnect with your own dad. You know that sounds

1276
01:09:17,080 --> 01:09:20,280
Speaker 1: like a personal situation. No, I mean, like whatever you

1277
01:09:20,320 --> 01:09:22,400
Speaker 1: need to do say once, like write him a letter,

1278
01:09:22,439 --> 01:09:24,400
Speaker 1: then burn it whatever. It sounds like you have a

1279
01:09:24,400 --> 01:09:28,400
Speaker 1: lot of personal Yeah, in his memory, shoot at someone's feet.

1280
01:09:28,760 --> 01:09:30,400
Speaker 1: But Honestly, it just sounds like you need to work

1281
01:09:30,439 --> 01:09:32,799
Speaker 1: out your fucking daddy issues instead of trying to daddy

1282
01:09:32,840 --> 01:09:35,200
Speaker 1: the whole fucking country. I think that really is the

1283
01:09:35,240 --> 01:09:38,200
Speaker 1: core of a lot of this. His dad was a

1284
01:09:38,200 --> 01:09:40,800
Speaker 1: piece of ship, Yeah, and he's trying to make up

1285
01:09:40,840 --> 01:09:45,400
Speaker 1: for it. Solved next case, the Moral Majority set to

1286
01:09:45,439 --> 01:09:49,040
Speaker 1: work preparing morality ratings for every member of Congress. See

1287
01:09:49,040 --> 01:09:53,200
Speaker 1: that's not terrifying. I love to be rated. Everybody does.

1288
01:09:53,720 --> 01:09:57,880
Speaker 1: It's like Airbnb, but for Congress. Uh. They founded documentaries

1289
01:09:57,880 --> 01:10:01,200
Speaker 1: attacking homosexuals as degenerates, int haring abortion as murder, and

1290
01:10:01,240 --> 01:10:04,480
Speaker 1: they launched a national voter registration drive aimed at Americans

1291
01:10:04,479 --> 01:10:08,759
Speaker 1: concerned with family values issues. From ban words article, Moral

1292
01:10:08,760 --> 01:10:11,880
Speaker 1: Majorities spring into action, mobilizing politicians and religious leaders to

1293
01:10:11,880 --> 01:10:14,519
Speaker 1: help support their platform. The movement boasted a wide variety

1294
01:10:14,520 --> 01:10:17,320
Speaker 1: of accomplishments and energy to influence the election. We're going

1295
01:10:17,360 --> 01:10:20,120
Speaker 1: to change the country Utah Senator or in hatch declare

1296
01:10:21,280 --> 01:10:23,560
Speaker 1: and or in a hatch. The Moral Majority boasted a

1297
01:10:23,600 --> 01:10:26,080
Speaker 1: political war chest worth millions of dollars. By the summer

1298
01:10:26,120 --> 01:10:28,600
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty, It opened offices in Washington, D C.

1299
01:10:28,840 --> 01:10:31,240
Speaker 1: And in just one year gave eighty three thousand new

1300
01:10:31,240 --> 01:10:34,160
Speaker 1: addresses for its mailing list. It's like the Black Set

1301
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:37,160
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, Fallwell said, and this time we're

1302
01:10:37,160 --> 01:10:42,000
Speaker 1: going to win. Oh my god. Roughly three months before

1303
01:10:42,040 --> 01:10:45,160
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty election, the Moral Majority officially announced its

1304
01:10:45,200 --> 01:10:50,800
Speaker 1: support of Ronald Wilson. Yeah, surprise, surprise. And that is

1305
01:10:50,800 --> 01:10:53,400
Speaker 1: where we're gonna leave off for the episode. In part two,

1306
01:10:53,680 --> 01:10:55,840
Speaker 1: we're going to learn about Jerry Folwell's reaction to the

1307
01:10:55,840 --> 01:10:59,000
Speaker 1: AIDS crisis, the Moral Majority under Reagan, and just a

1308
01:10:59,080 --> 01:11:02,759
Speaker 1: little that about how a certain conservative fire brand reacted

1309
01:11:02,800 --> 01:11:05,599
Speaker 1: to nine eleven. And we're gonna talk about Larry Flint,

1310
01:11:05,600 --> 01:11:07,479
Speaker 1: who's going to be the hero of the next episode.

1311
01:11:07,600 --> 01:11:13,040
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, hell yeah. But first, Sophia, you have a podcast.

1312
01:11:13,680 --> 01:11:15,880
Speaker 1: It's right. I have a podcast called Private Parts and

1313
01:11:16,040 --> 01:11:19,280
Speaker 1: Round Parts Unknown. I co host it with Courtney Kossak

1314
01:11:20,040 --> 01:11:23,320
Speaker 1: and uh it's a podcast about love and sexuality around

1315
01:11:23,320 --> 01:11:28,360
Speaker 1: the world and it's really fun. And soon my podcast

1316
01:11:28,479 --> 01:11:32,400
Speaker 1: with Miles Gray called is coming out, so watch out

1317
01:11:32,479 --> 01:11:34,880
Speaker 1: for that. I'm going to issue a challenge to the

1318
01:11:35,280 --> 01:11:38,240
Speaker 1: listeners of both of our podcasts. If you're a fan

1319
01:11:38,280 --> 01:11:41,719
Speaker 1: of Bastard's pod and Private Parts Unknown because your podcast

1320
01:11:41,760 --> 01:11:45,960
Speaker 1: is essentially the oral opposite of Jerry Fallwell, like condensed

1321
01:11:45,960 --> 01:11:49,519
Speaker 1: into sound waves. Yes, so if you, if you live

1322
01:11:49,600 --> 01:11:52,920
Speaker 1: near Virginia where he's buried, fans of the show, get

1323
01:11:53,000 --> 01:11:57,639
Speaker 1: some speakers. Oh my god, which episode would you want

1324
01:11:57,640 --> 01:12:00,840
Speaker 1: blasted into Jerry Fallwell's corpse um and talking about their

1325
01:12:00,840 --> 01:12:04,280
Speaker 1: experiences with abortion? Nailing it? Oh? Yeah, yeah, play that

1326
01:12:04,320 --> 01:12:07,200
Speaker 1: one directly into Jerry Fallwell's grave. You're gonna have to

1327
01:12:07,280 --> 01:12:09,920
Speaker 1: go to the Liberty University campus to do it, and

1328
01:12:09,960 --> 01:12:12,840
Speaker 1: they will kick you out. But but please get that

1329
01:12:12,960 --> 01:12:16,880
Speaker 1: video ship. That would really make my life. Actually, yeah, yeah,

1330
01:12:16,880 --> 01:12:20,320
Speaker 1: that there will that You will be beloved by all

1331
01:12:20,360 --> 01:12:23,000
Speaker 1: of us if you if you succeed in beaming an

1332
01:12:23,000 --> 01:12:27,920
Speaker 1: episode of Private Parts Unknown into Jerry Fallwell's yeah into

1333
01:12:28,680 --> 01:12:33,040
Speaker 1: his ghost yeah body, which is now in the most

1334
01:12:33,040 --> 01:12:36,679
Speaker 1: subterranean levels of Cansylvania. Yeah, I think that will destroy

1335
01:12:36,760 --> 01:12:40,200
Speaker 1: his ghost. Wow, that's not That's the only way you

1336
01:12:40,240 --> 01:12:41,760
Speaker 1: can get rid of gusts. The only way you can

1337
01:12:41,760 --> 01:12:45,040
Speaker 1: get rid of a ghosts You find their their their opposite,

1338
01:12:45,560 --> 01:12:48,400
Speaker 1: condense it into sound waves and then blasted into their

1339
01:12:48,400 --> 01:12:50,840
Speaker 1: corpse it's like a silver bullet for vampires. It's like

1340
01:12:50,880 --> 01:12:54,599
Speaker 1: a silver bullet for vampires, but for ghosts truth and

1341
01:12:54,680 --> 01:12:58,000
Speaker 1: you can just download it on your phone using Spotify.

1342
01:12:58,240 --> 01:13:00,280
Speaker 1: Now you want to plug your social meds. So when

1343
01:13:00,360 --> 01:13:03,880
Speaker 1: fans beam their music into Jerry Fallwells Court or your

1344
01:13:04,000 --> 01:13:06,760
Speaker 1: podcast into Jerry Fallwell's corpse, uh, they can let you know.

1345
01:13:06,920 --> 01:13:10,200
Speaker 1: Yeah please? I am the Sophie on Twitter and instagram s,

1346
01:13:10,240 --> 01:13:17,560
Speaker 1: so f I y a ulcer spoilers, he's dead. I

1347
01:13:17,680 --> 01:13:20,559
Speaker 1: just realized we hadn't gotten there. I think people know

1348
01:13:20,760 --> 01:13:25,720
Speaker 1: he's dead, but I really appreciate the spoiler alert. It's

1349
01:13:25,760 --> 01:13:31,160
Speaker 1: the episode I website Behind the Bastards dot com t shirts,

1350
01:13:31,320 --> 01:13:37,840
Speaker 1: t public other podcast Worst Year Ever, Binding the Bastards,

1351
01:13:38,280 --> 01:13:50,640
Speaker 1: Bastard pot at on Twitter, Instagram, episode done