University of Virginia Library

ASSESSING THE MORAL MAJORITY'S STRENGTH:
A LITERATURE REVIEW

Assessing the real organizational strength of the Moral Majority has been a matter of interest to virtually everyone involved in understanding the political process in America. Ronald Reagan concluded early that Jerry Falwell had a significant following and he has acted accordingly during his presidency. Now, George Bush's advisors, as well as Republican operatives across the country, are debating the assets and liabilities of Falwell's support. Liberal Democrats have a serious interest in assessing whether the Moral Majority is really a threat to their value preferences and political power or, as many of them believe, merely a "paper tiger." Students of social movements too are interested in forecasting the strength and the potential of the conservative movement in America, and where the Moral Majority fits into this broader movement.

Social movement organizations typically provide little organizational data. What they do offer is likely to be self-serving and, thus, must be treated with caution. It is virtually a truism that SMOs systematically

"fudge" organizational numbers to exaggerate their power. And since memberships, financial data, and other organizational records are not readily accessible for public inspection, SMOs typically utilize made-up statistics to create impressions of much greater organizational strength than they actually have. Few people have worked the magic of made-up organizational figures more skillfully than Jerry Falwell. (An insider joke among people who work for Falwell is that "Jerry never lies...he just remembers big.")

In the absence of reliable data, how can we assess the organizational strength of SMOs generally and the Moral Majority specifically? The answer is that we must rely on indirect measures. Two broad classes of data have been utilized to try to get a better picture of the size and strength of the Moral Majority.

The first class of data involves a variety of indirect measures of support for the Moral Majority. What do people think about the Moral Majority? Where is the general public viz. the value preferences of the Moral Majority?

Studies which attempt to measure support for Falwell and the Moral Majority are fairly consistent in recording low rates of approval. A 1981 Gallup Poll found that 40% of the respondents of a national sample had heard of the Moral Majority while only 8% approved of the organization (Gallup Report, 1981: 60). In 1982, Gallup found that recognition of the Moral Majority had increased to 55% and approval had grown to 12%, with 5% expressing an interest in joining (Gallup Report, 1982: 170). But Gallup polling in subsequent years failed to reveal any appreciable increase in Moral Majority popularity.

In Dallas-Fort Worth, which Shupe and Stacey call the heart of the Bible-Belt, they found that only 16% expressed favorable attitudes toward the Moral Majority while 31% expressed hostile feelings toward the organization (1983). In Indiana, Johnson and Tamney conducted two separate studies in "Middletown" and support for the Moral Majority declined from a slim 16% in 1981 to 14% in 1982 (1983: xx; 1984: 189).

In a national study, Buell and Sigelman found about 3% outright support for the Moral Majority and another 6% were classified as sympathetic with the Moral Majority. In sharp contrast, fully two-thirds (69%) were either hostile or critical of the organization and their beliefs (1985: 431).

On the other hand, studies which have attempted to estimate Moral Majority support by determining what proportion of the population support views consistent with the organization's position have produced much higher support. Analyzing New York Times/CBS News poll data, for example, Yankelovich (1981:5) concluded that 67 million Americans were potential Moral Majority supporters. And Simpson (1983: 188-190) analyzed NORC data and found 30% of the population were in agreement with the Moral Majority in disapproving homosexuality, the women's liberation movement, abortion, and federally mandated legislation restricting school prayer. On individual items, support for the Moral Majority position ran even higher.

This latter class of data supports Falwell's claim of having a significant proportion of the population with him on the issues but still unwilling to express sympathy for his organization. These data in conjunction with the low support obtained when the Moral Majority name is mentioned suggest Falwell may have acted with considerable wisdom in getting rid of the name--at least if his goal is to move toward "respectability" and broaden the base of organizational support.

A second broad class of data deal specifically with the actual organization of the Moral Majority. The number of studies in this second class is not large. Typically, they have utilized unobtrusive measures to glean insights about the size and character of the organization.

During the 1980 presidential campaign, Falwell claimed the Moral Majority had two to three million members. Hadden and Swann (1981: 137, 164-5) were able to pull together a number of organizational indicators from which they inferred that this size claim had to be significantly exaggerated. Among other things, they noted that the claimed circulation of the Moral Majority Report was only 482,000. Why don't all the members of the Moral Majority receive its official publication, they asked. They learned also from the Executive Director of the Washington state Moral Majority that his chapter had 12,000 members. The national office of Moral Majority confirmed that Washington state had the largest membership of any state. Simple arithmetic led to the conclusion that the total size of the national organization had to be much smaller than Falwell was boasting.

Probably the most perceptive glimpse into the organizational character of the Moral Majority was offered by Liebman (1983). From the onset, Falwell claimed that the Moral Majority represented a broad ecumenical base of Protestants, Catholics and Jews. Utilizing the directory of state chairman published in the Moral Majority Report, Liebman went to local telephone directories, and a variety of other resources, to

see if this claim could be substantiated in terms of organizational leadership. He was able to identify forty-five of the fifty state chairman as Baptist ministers. Furthermore, twenty-eight of them were affiliated with a small alliance of independent Baptists called the Bible Baptist Fellowship.

Liebman's data seriously challenged the claim of broad based ecumenicity. Furthermore, he uncovered an important clue as to how Falwell was able to put together a national organization so quickly. The Moral Majority merely, but ingeniously, linked an already existing national communications network of conservative ministers, spread its umbrella over them, and gave them a name. From its origin, the Moral Majority had a running start with an already existing nascent national federation along with an extensive array of mailing lists.

Utilizing existing networks and organizational structures has liabilities as well as assets. As Liebman notes:

One important liability for the Moral Majority was the necessity of structuring the organization so that state charters were quasi-autonomous. Falwell claimed that local autonomy was an asset, but the record suggests there were significant liabilities as well. There were several incidents where people far to the right of Falwell engaged in activities and made statements that were so outrageous that Falwell had to publicly repudiate or disassociate himself from them.

A more significant liability was the problem of motivating people, already highly successful in their own right, to organize their own time and projects in the name of the Moral Majority. From the beginning, the Board of Directors consisted of pastors of "super churches" and only one of these persons actively pursued projects in the name of the Moral Majority. The others basically "lent" their names and otherwise went about their own business.

Such liabilities do not necessarily preclude the development of a strong national organization, or coalition of loosely networked state organizations under a national umbrella. But this knowledge should serve as a warning that Falwell would likely encounter difficulties in building a solid grass-roots organization. In the absence of substantiated evidence, one should approach claims of organization success with some skepticism. Development is not likely to be easy, and it should not be

assumed, simply on the basis of unsubstantiated claims, that these liabilities have been overcome.

Just how successful Falwell may have been in building a strong grass roots SMO has been the subject of much speculation and debate, but there has generally been an absence of systematic efforts to find indicators of organizational strength. This paper is offered as a modest effort to fill that gap.