Balkinization: In the Beginning

In the Beginning

Mark Graber

In the beginning, there was the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Virginia. This is where, at age 22, Jerry Falwell began his professional career. His obituaries quickly note this fact, observe how he built his church and flock, then quickly move to Falwell's political career in the 1970s. No mention is made of the issues that first positioned Falwell to become a national figure. The main issue, of course, was racial segregation. For more than a decade, Falwell rose to power by preaching that Brown v. Board of Education, related judicial decisions, and anti-discrimination laws were abominations to the Lord. The heart of social conservatism in America is a set of religious schools founded in the late 1950s and 1960s, and their original purpose was not to ensure students would not be enticed by the prospect of gay marriage. Contemporary social conservatives have, with a good deal of media cooperation, attempted to bury this history. Popular revisionist histories pretend that the Moral Majority was created "ex nihilo" the day Roe v. Wade was decided. This is false. A religious political movement was already on the ground, and that movement had previously been dedicated to a the losing struggle to maintain Jim Crow. There are, of course, many strong pro-life advocates who marched with Martin Luther King at Selma. Opposition to abortion is philosophically perfectly consistent with both liberal racial equality and a good many principles championed by more radical proponents of critical race theory. Still, when we tell the story of the anti-abortion movement as a political movement we should remember the issues that first animated too much of its leadership and mass base.

Posted 8:25 AM by Mark Graber [link]

Comments:

Professor Graber:

Your coflation of Jerry Falwell's racist pre-movement comments with the motives of the subsequent and much wider conservative religious movement in this country is a smear. This is the equivalent of calling the Democrats the party of racism because Robert Byrd was a KKK member when Fallwell was preaching his racism.

The modern conservative religious movement spans not only white Protestant evangelicals, but also conservative Catholics, Jews and African American Protestants. The recruiting for this mass movement was a reaction to undemocratic court rulings banning prayer and a great deal of other religious speech from the public square, Roe v. Wade and now the imposition of gay marriage. Their goals are to reverse those judicial impositions and restore what they believe to be a more traditional moral order. None of this has to do with restoring Jim Crow or the like.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:09 AM

Um, I don't believe gay marraige has ever been "imposed". I believe it was an inherent constitutional right that people like you voted to repress in many states. You make it sound like the government was trying to force you to marry another man. Sorry, no. Gay marriage is not being forced on anybody and Christians are not being persecuted in this country because they are in the majority. And again, this movement did not start four years ago, so how can it be a response to "banning" prayer in schools. It has never been banned, by the way. You can pray wherever you damn well please. You just can't force my kid to do it any more.

As for this blog: I believe he was simply implying that "social conservitivism" does and always has stood for intolerance and the enforcement of repression. Be it the rights of blacks in regards to Jim Crow and segregation, or homosexuals in regards to the right to visit your life mate in the hospital, social conservatives have been pro-repression and nothing more.

# posted by

Unknown : 10:04 AM

Readers may be interested in a very interesting responsive post by Prof. Paul Horwitz over at PrawfsBlawg:
http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2007/05/falwell_king_an.html

# posted by

Dan Markel : 10:06 AM

Lol. The professors here can be pretty disingenuous at times, but this is more fun than usual.

I really hope Professor Graber intends this analysis in an entirely one-time hypocritical manner.

Otherwise, sure, let's just apply it similarly to Democractic or liberal movements that had questionable relations at their founding.

Hmm, where to start, historic democratic support for slavery and racism? eugenics? Communist sympathizers?

Come on, we can all play this game!

# posted by

humblelawstudent : 10:24 AM

It's hard to take you seriously, "Someone." Conservatives forever delight in pointing out the eugenic influences on Planned Parenthood; that's a well-known and frankly tired story.

The fact is, Prof Graber is right about the untoward origins of social conservatism; is it any wonder that social conservatism is the strongest in the South?

Glass houses aren't much fun, huh?

# posted by

Calvin TerBeek : 10:47 AM

Someone:

Communist sympathizers?

Horrors!!! There's Reds under our beds?!?!?

Why, that's positively un-'Merkun.

Yeah, that dagnappit pesky ACLU was all a nest of commies bent on so'shulist revolution ... and flouridation.

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 11:26 AM

Hmm, where to start, historic democratic support for slavery and racism? eugenics? Communist sympathizers?

I'm hard pressed to identify a group, other than the CPUSA of course, that got its start as "Communist sympathizers" unless you mean today's neo-cons, many of whom are former Trotskyites. It has been suggested that their attraction to authoritarian politics forms the linkage between their youth and their support for Bush today.

It is, of course, true that the Democratic party had its (at least Jacksonian) origins as a pro-slavery, racist organization. There are two important differences which I see. One is the obvious fact that no one from 1828 is alive today. In contrast, Prof. Graber's post deals with the very same person. Obviously it's disreputable to have begun one's career as a segregationist. The question is the extent to which Falwell or others overcame that. I think the point is that he seems to have made few strides in a positive direction.

The other important difference would involve organizations rather than individuals. If the organizations change their character, then of course their previous sins are less important. Again, one might question the extent to which that is the case for Falwell.

Finally, the real issue is how the press characterizes the origins of Falwell's movement. If one believes Falwell did move past his segregationist origins, then it's fine to ignore his origins entirely. What's misleading, though, is to assert that his origins lay in opposition to social issues like abortion. That simply isn't true.

# posted by

Mark Field : 11:48 AM

Calvin,

Okay, so because its "well-known and tired" that somehow diminishes its importance?

How about "is it any wonder that communist sympathizers are strongest in the liberal movement?"

We can all be right about all sorts of "untoward origins" of all sorts of political or social movements, which goes to my point.

This attempt at tarring is tenuous at best.

# posted by

humblelawstudent : 12:15 PM

Arne,

Good! you would then agree with me that all sorts of tarring of this sort are ridiculous.

# posted by

humblelawstudent : 12:16 PM

Mark,

My point was getting to the professor's use of one figure to tar a movement that is largely independent of Falwell, even if he was one of the founders.

I have no problem with tarring individuals for what they have done, like Falwell.

Its this "collective tarring" thing based on tenuous connections that I'm raving against. Maybe there is a connection between this and our previous conversations.

# posted by

humblelawstudent : 12:22 PM

Someone:

Good! you would then agree with me that all sorts of tarring of this sort are ridiculous.

No, what I'm saying is that it ain't no crime to be a communist (FWIW, neither communism nor socialism are prohibited by the U.S. constitution; they are economic systems, and AFAIK, the constitution is silent on whether communism or laissez faire capitalism are preferred as organisingprinciples of the market).

Being a racist, OTOH, is constitutionally and governmentally disfavoured.

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 1:12 PM

Maybe there is a connection between this and our previous conversations.

Heh.

My point was getting to the professor's use of one figure to tar a movement that is largely independent of Falwell, even if he was one of the founders.

I have no problem with tarring individuals for what they have done, like Falwell.

I agree, and I suspect Prof. Graber does too, that it's wrong to tag even political allies for the personal sins of others. Al Gore, for example, is not responsible for Bill Clinton's sex life. Barry Goldwater was not responsible for Richard Nixon's multiple defects.

However, it is fair to note that many of today's older conservatives got their start as defenders of segregation. Bill Buckley, for example, made a good many statements in the 50s which I imagine (or at least hope) that he'd disavow today. From here see my previous post.

# posted by

Mark Field : 1:37 PM

Someone: Come on, we can all play this game!

HLS, is that you? You embarrass yourself. It's not a game. Bart and his ilk, which I try to exclude you from in my thinking, would be just as glad to white-wash (ironic term, eh?) Falwell's history and motives. But the simple truth is he was a hateful, hateful man, a perfect example of religion's failures (which is not to say religion lacks its successes.)

Better for your credibility to pony up and say, "Yeah, Falwell was a shit, and our movement is better off without him." It's certainly more moral.

# posted by

Robert Link : 8:47 AM