Speaker 1: What's operating dangerous prehistoric weaponry in a recording studio my me.
Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans, hosted Behind the Bastards UH podcasts Bad
Speaker 1: People talk about here with my friends Sophie and Sophia.
Speaker 1: How you doing, Sophia. That was the worst opening of
Speaker 1: all times. I think that was the worst. I really
Speaker 1: do that well. I opened it that way because one
Speaker 1: of my wonderful fans UH sent me a sling, like
Speaker 1: a shepherd sling, which is like one of the deadliest
Speaker 1: weapons of the ancient era, but modified to throw bagels.
Speaker 1: It's got a huge David and Goliath vibe it does.
Speaker 1: It's exactly that kind of sling, except for it throws bagels,
Speaker 1: and I've got a very moldy bagel in there because
Speaker 1: we don't change the beg I know you look horrified,
Speaker 1: am I. I'm very touched by this gift. And the
Speaker 1: one thing he said on the note card that vaguely
Speaker 1: explained how to operate it was do not use it inside.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to immediately do that. You already did
Speaker 1: immediately do that. You tried to use it in a kitchen,
Speaker 1: not not in the tiny confines of the recordings to you. So,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just gonna do it, and so fucking lucky.
Speaker 1: The smoldy bagel didn't touch the almond butter I've been
Speaker 1: squeezing in my mouth. It did knock the soundproofing off
Speaker 1: the wall slightly, so mad So Ifie, you knew as
Speaker 1: soon as I got that in the mail, I was
Speaker 1: going to have to throw it in the room where
Speaker 1: it would do damage. Now you've taken it away. That's
Speaker 1: the only way this was going to go. You did it.
Speaker 1: It's over. How are you doing today, Sophia, I'm great.
Speaker 1: How are you, Robber? I'm doing fantastic. I got to
Speaker 1: throw a bagel. Uh, that's the plantation marks about it,
Speaker 1: because you didn't. Really, it did not work. It hit
Speaker 1: with some force. It did. My goal is always to
Speaker 1: do damage to the room, and it did damage to
Speaker 1: the room. Sophie's shooting daggers at you with her beautiful
Speaker 1: big guys. I'm slowly sipping a coffee, making eye contact
Speaker 1: the whole time, Sophie, this is what the fans love.
Speaker 1: It's not the well researched essays. That's fine, Anderson wasn't harmed.
Speaker 1: We can continue. Anderson's fine Sophia, what do you know
Speaker 1: about Jerry Fallwell, I mean nothing great. You're not going
Speaker 1: to learn nothing good. I'm just excited to not be
Speaker 1: here for another baby murder themed episode. This is not
Speaker 1: baby murder themed. If if you've heard me on this
Speaker 1: podcast before, you know that Robert delights in torturing me
Speaker 1: with only the most innocent deaths. You know, Sophia, it's
Speaker 1: it's that most people aren't tough enough to handle the
Speaker 1: baby murder episodes. I feel like that's what an abuse
Speaker 1: of dad says when he hits you with his belt.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, make a character better, it's free character.
Speaker 1: What is it abuse if it's accidental and just based
Speaker 1: purely on like irresponsibility and recklessness. Yes, okay, well fair,
Speaker 1: Like what if your dad just doesn't make you buckle up?
Speaker 1: I don't know, just purely hypothetical for you. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: Jerry Fallwell, it's kind of America's dad and his career.
Speaker 1: I'll say this, it's the opposite of killing babies. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is true, kind of. I mean he would say
Speaker 1: it's the opposite of killing babies. I would say it's
Speaker 1: stripping people of their reproductive health the interest of clumps
Speaker 1: of cells. But there's a disagreement on that at a
Speaker 1: fundamental level, which is why America's sliding towards the precipice
Speaker 1: of any you want to talk about, Jerry Falwell's do it. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's just get into this. According to some bullshit scrap
Speaker 1: of paper called the constitutional and politics are supposed to
Speaker 1: be separate things in this country. In fact, churches can
Speaker 1: technically lose their tax exempt status if they're seemed to
Speaker 1: advocate for a specific party or candidate too strongly. Oddly enough,
Speaker 1: that never seems to happen, and a few million Christian
Speaker 1: fundamentalists have succeeded in holding large chunks of our national
Speaker 1: discourse hostage for decades. Now, how did this happen? Do
Speaker 1: you tell? Well? It wasn't always this way, Sophia. It was.
Speaker 1: It used to not be normal for religion and politics
Speaker 1: to be as directly a thing as they are today.
Speaker 1: And the answer to how things got where they are
Speaker 1: starts with a fella named Jerry Folwell. Today he is
Speaker 1: thankfully a dead person, but once upon a time he
Speaker 1: was alive, and he funked up a truly shocking amount
Speaker 1: of things for the rest of us. So that's what
Speaker 1: this story is. This is the tale of how all
Speaker 1: of the different chunks of American Christianity, at least the
Speaker 1: unreasonable chunks of American Christianity, got together to really limit
Speaker 1: the rights of women and gay people. That's that's that's
Speaker 1: the story of Jerry Folwell. I feel you hate me
Speaker 1: because you're like a less invite a bisexual woman to
Speaker 1: talk about I want to invite the person who's going
Speaker 1: to be angriest about what we talk about today. Hey,
Speaker 1: fair enough, I get I got piste off writing it
Speaker 1: like it was not a good time. Jerry Lemon Fallwell
Speaker 1: was born on August eleven, n three. That's a dope
Speaker 1: middle name. Why are we not focusing on that, Laman,
Speaker 1: It is a cool middle name. Yeah, he had a
Speaker 1: twin brother named Jean, who was born roughly at the
Speaker 1: same time. But Jean was boring and we're not going
Speaker 1: to talk about him today. What about his sister Lululemon.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. Wouldn't it be weird if that was
Speaker 1: the reality of the situation, that like there was the
Speaker 1: same family gave us the religious right and Lululemon yoga pants.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all evil, So it is all evil. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very overpriced yoga pants. Jean and Jerry were born in Lynchburg, Virginia,
Speaker 1: a town name aimed for the man who invented lynching. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: he invented lynching for the purpose. Well okay, but it's
Speaker 1: not actually a sad story. He invented lynching to do
Speaker 1: it to British people, so it's not racist. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess it's. I'm fine with lynching. British people aren't wait, alienate?
Speaker 1: Are British? Oh? They know what they did, Sophie. We've
Speaker 1: done so many episodes on British people. Hey, British fans,
Speaker 1: I don't feel the same, big inglio English anglophile. God,
Speaker 1: damn it the name right. See, I know Prince Harry's hot. Continue.
Speaker 1: I don't you know what's not hot? The British Empire
Speaker 1: and the millions of people it killed. No empire, such
Speaker 1: a downer, I know. And that's what lynching was invented.
Speaker 1: It was. It was invented to lynch colonial overlords. So
Speaker 1: I'm just saying lynching turned into something problematic. But it
Speaker 1: started from a good place, a desire to hang colonial
Speaker 1: oppressors by their thumbs. That was also the original Lynching.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see the T shirts. This is
Speaker 1: going to inspire. I don't know how ways in to
Speaker 1: defend lynching. Seriously, you're making headlines right now that no
Speaker 1: one needs. Yeah, I I am always trying to be canceled,
Speaker 1: which is why I recklessly throw mouldy bagels in a room. Well,
Speaker 1: Miles and I have invented Cansylvania and he lives there recently.
Speaker 1: You can be used for me, all right. Jerry Fallwell's father,
Speaker 1: Carry Fallwell, which is frustrating to me, frustrating to write
Speaker 1: and Jerry, Yeah, yeah. Carry Fallwell was an incredibly successful businessman.
Speaker 1: He broke away from his family's history of being poor
Speaker 1: farmers to start a grocery store in nineteen fifteen at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty two. By nine one, he'd done
Speaker 1: well enough to start opening a series of service stations
Speaker 1: around Lynchburg to provide fuel for the growing automotist community.
Speaker 1: Carry's main innovation was to add a small store or
Speaker 1: restaurant to each of his stations. This idea proved popular
Speaker 1: enough that he eventually opened seventeen stores in the Lynchburg area.
Speaker 1: So he invented that. Yeah, I think I think he
Speaker 1: was like one of the gas I think a station
Speaker 1: seven eleven type thing, one of the guys like I
Speaker 1: think a few people hit upon the eight of like
Speaker 1: we're selling gas, we might as well sell some fucking spies. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's like one of the one of the pioneers
Speaker 1: of the gas station market industry. That's pretty rad, pretty rad.
Speaker 1: He's a he's a cool. You're gonna like him more
Speaker 1: than than Jerry. I mean, that's not hard, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: not hard. He was an objectively better person um, although
Speaker 1: still pretty terrible. Uh yeah, so, carry success in the
Speaker 1: fuel business led to him starting a new company distributing
Speaker 1: oil and gas to sixteen counties in Virginia. Jerry Fallwell's
Speaker 1: best biographer, Michael Shawn Winter's, describes Jerry's upbringing as affluent.
Speaker 1: I prefer the term rich as hell. Jerry grew up
Speaker 1: with no financial worries of any kind, but that does
Speaker 1: not mean his childhood was easy. See. Carry Folwell was
Speaker 1: great at business, but the rest to his life was
Speaker 1: kind of a train wreck. For one thing, he was
Speaker 1: not the kind of dude who could keep on the
Speaker 1: straight and narrow. He opened a hotel in a dance hall,
Speaker 1: which led him to sponsoring cock fights and dog fights
Speaker 1: in a variety of venues. This was illegal at the time.
Speaker 1: These were not you know, respectable cock fights. These were Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the things you're going down for in this episode,
Speaker 1: you're dying on the hill of lynching and cock fights. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not dying. I'm just saying it was an illegal No,
Speaker 1: there's a subterranean level to Cansylvania. It's like underneath regular Cansylvania.
Speaker 1: And it smells a lot there. Yeah, it's it's so welcome,
Speaker 1: probably worse than a cock fight smells. It's just are
Speaker 1: we're just going to ignore the dog fight part of
Speaker 1: this story? What the fuck? It's fucked up. I'm saying
Speaker 1: it's bad. I'm just saying he's dying on the hill.
Speaker 1: Apologize to Anderson. I am sorry, Anderson. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to make it clear, like Virginia in nineteen teens, anything
Speaker 1: could be legal. I just wanted to make it clear
Speaker 1: that even even among in that like these were not
Speaker 1: These were not legitimate dog fights. Again, the fact that
Speaker 1: you keep separating it, it's like people who say what
Speaker 1: is it, They're like, oh, yeah, there's consensual sex and
Speaker 1: non consensual sex. No, non concexual sex is rape. I
Speaker 1: feel like you're doing a real similar job over there. Well,
Speaker 1: I just I assume there were legal dog fights in
Speaker 1: Virginia as well, the good kind. Right, All dog fighting
Speaker 1: is bad. Oh, I'm glad it took you, But I
Speaker 1: I suspect I'm just saying these were particularly bad dog
Speaker 1: fights fights. I can't get out of here, you dog linger.
Speaker 1: If you split hairs enough, eventually you split an atom.
Speaker 1: That blows up your career. That's a beautiful thing. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So Carrie Fallwell got into the bootlegging business after getting
Speaker 1: into the dog fighting business. His partner in bootlegging was
Speaker 1: his brother Garland. They would use the trucks for their
Speaker 1: oil and garglesness to deliver liquor to all of his
Speaker 1: sundry stores. So that's how they would hide the liquors
Speaker 1: and the gas trucks, which I'm sure made it taste great. Uh.
Speaker 1: These illegal venues were incredibly profitable. In the nineteen seven
Speaker 1: carry Fallwell started another legitimate business, the first bus company
Speaker 1: with roots between Lynchburg and Washington, d C. So that's
Speaker 1: good bringing lynching to other places. Pretty cool as long
Speaker 1: as it's the kind of thumb lynching that's not racist.
Speaker 1: Carry was too rich and too smart to get caught
Speaker 1: breaking the law constantly, but everyone in town knew that
Speaker 1: he was the shadiest motherfucker in the city. Uh. This
Speaker 1: meant that the Fallwells were ostracized from high society. So
Speaker 1: they were rich, but they weren't allowed to hang out
Speaker 1: with the other rich folks. That does sound like the
Speaker 1: best kind of rich to be right. You don't want
Speaker 1: to hang out with other losers. You're just sing throwing
Speaker 1: your money, and you're just like not because they're around
Speaker 1: the dorky, fucking other rich people. It's like Cotillion's right,
Speaker 1: that's all they're doing, just Contillians left and right, constant
Speaker 1: debutante balls. Sounds like nothing. I want to be a
Speaker 1: part of No No, but I think this this was
Speaker 1: This was a bummer for Jerry Folwell as a little kid,
Speaker 1: but that's he loved to debut. He was a big
Speaker 1: debut er, debutist. So exacerbating their sort of pariah status
Speaker 1: was the fact that Carry Folwell had an unfortunate habit
Speaker 1: of playing profoundly abusive pranks on everyone around him. I'm
Speaker 1: going to quote now from a very fantastic book, God's
Speaker 1: Right Hand by Michael Winters. Jerry Folwell would later recall
Speaker 1: that his father was a prankster. Jerry once brought a
Speaker 1: friend home who admitted he was scared of carry. Jerry
Speaker 1: told his father of his friend's fear, half cautioning half
Speaker 1: goat and carry as he brought the young man into
Speaker 1: the house. When the young friend walked in, Carrie shouted, stopped,
Speaker 1: aimed a pistol at the boy's feet, and shot a
Speaker 1: hole in the floor a few instus in front of
Speaker 1: his shoes. I've been trying to get that fly all day,
Speaker 1: Jerry's father announced, returning to his newspaper while the boy
Speaker 1: fled the house. Jerry admitted that he and his father
Speaker 1: held with laughter. Some of the pranks were cruel, however,
Speaker 1: some of them were as opposed to that other good
Speaker 1: prank that happened that was majoredly shooting at somebody. It
Speaker 1: was a playful gun shots, Sophia, not one of those
Speaker 1: mean gun shots. Some of the pranks were cruel, however,
Speaker 1: as when Carrie decided he had enough complaints from one
Speaker 1: of his workers. When the man called in sick, Carrie
Speaker 1: offered to have lunch brought to his house, then killed
Speaker 1: and skinned the man's cat, putting it into a squirrel stew,
Speaker 1: and sent it to the man's home for lunch. The
Speaker 1: next day, the man complained that the squirrel meating the
Speaker 1: stew had been tough, and Carrie told him he had
Speaker 1: eaten his own cat. That is not a joke. That's
Speaker 1: not a prank. That's a Greek is not a Greek
Speaker 1: myth thing, the myth they fed dude to his own
Speaker 1: his own kids. Oh yeah, that's right up fucking ancient evil.
Speaker 1: That's not even like modern. Yeah, that's like what a
Speaker 1: Greek god would do to fun because like they have
Speaker 1: no sense of human morality. Yeah, it's like an Olympic prank.
Speaker 1: It's it's serial killer ship Mount Olympus. That is fucking insane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's something a serial killer does as a joke. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna kill made you eat a cat? Like so crazy?
Speaker 1: What does he think the payoff is when he tells
Speaker 1: the guy just watches him cry. I think it's just
Speaker 1: he's the guy's boss, so there's nothing the dude can
Speaker 1: do against him. I mean, but like, what's the reaction
Speaker 1: He's hoping for for him to cry. Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: Probably that's so crazy. He's just a piece of ship.
Speaker 1: He's a really bad person, way better person than his
Speaker 1: kid turns out to be. Yeah, So hearing all that,
Speaker 1: it probably won't surprise you to learn that Carry Folwell
Speaker 1: was an outrageous drunk. His brother Garland was too, And
Speaker 1: while Carry was a relatively peaceful drunk, preferring to get
Speaker 1: wasted at home alone most of the time, Garland was
Speaker 1: pretty much the worst case scenario for an alcoholic. He
Speaker 1: had a tendency to fall into violent rages. In nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty one, he was arrested for shooting at some teenagers
Speaker 1: who'd annoyed him. This was not an isolated incident. Garland
Speaker 1: Folwell had numerous arrests for violent drunken behavior. All of
Speaker 1: this came to a head in nineteen thirty one, which
Speaker 1: is probably the worst year of young Jerry Folwell's life.
Speaker 1: It was certainly the worst year of his father's life.
Speaker 1: Carrie's daughter, Rasha and Jerry's sister, was struck ill with appendicitis.
Speaker 1: Kerry didn't believe in hospital, so he tried to treat
Speaker 1: her at home. Her appendix burst and she died of
Speaker 1: periton itis at age ten. There's a dead kid, and
Speaker 1: that also like he's son of a bitch. You got
Speaker 1: me in there, isn't It? Also an incredibly painful way
Speaker 1: to die, one of the worst. From what I understand,
Speaker 1: if you when you're appendix explodes is like the most painful.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a terrible way to die. Yeah. Also
Speaker 1: pretty cool that you have so much like Hubris that
Speaker 1: you're like, no, I'll treat this, I'll treat this. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ninety one too. There's actual medicine by that point. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: just a few months after Rasha died, while Carrie was
Speaker 1: still deep in grief, Garland got incredibly drunk and started
Speaker 1: shooting off firecrackers. Someone in town called the cops on
Speaker 1: him for some unclear reason, probably boiling down to the
Speaker 1: fact that he was really wasted. Garland became convinced that
Speaker 1: his brother Carry is the one that called the cops
Speaker 1: on him. He tracked Carry down and started shooting at him.
Speaker 1: Carrie grabbed his shotgun, returned fire, and killed his brother instantly. Okay,
Speaker 1: that delights me. Yeah, that's great. You're gonna like this
Speaker 1: to the low. A newspaper wrote of the event, Garland
Speaker 1: Folwell is dead. Thus his turbulent career of terrorizing the
Speaker 1: police and populace was brought to an abrupt close. Even
Speaker 1: the paper on him, they're like, this is the worst
Speaker 1: guy in our city who wants to dance on his
Speaker 1: grave tonight. That's literally the tone of it. It's just like,
Speaker 1: what a piece of ship. Thank god he's dead, ding dong,
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things like Carrie Fallwall is
Speaker 1: obviously a bad guy. Sounds like this was a totally
Speaker 1: justified homicide. I mean, if it's just fucking horrible people
Speaker 1: killing each other, it's just it's all a win win.
Speaker 1: They're both people who use guns as ways to punctuate,
Speaker 1: like gunfire to punctuate their arguments. Yeah. I mean I
Speaker 1: feel like the only people then they should argue with
Speaker 1: is each other. And that's what happened. That's so great. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I prefer to use a nice throwing bagel on
Speaker 1: a sling as a way to punctuate my rages. I mean, again,
Speaker 1: would be more impressive. You could actually master the throat,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's new. You gotta look, yeah,
Speaker 1: you stopped. Well, I can throw them with my hand.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to learn how to use the sling. All right,
Speaker 1: it's outside like they said in the now. No, I'm
Speaker 1: only ever going to use it in recording studios. You're
Speaker 1: fired at some point. Yes, eventually I will cross a
Speaker 1: final line and damage equipment in this studio and that
Speaker 1: will be the end of this podcast. Yeah. Anyway, back
Speaker 1: to the Fallwells. So things are going great for the
Speaker 1: Fallwell family. In n one daughter dies of appendicitis. Gunfight
Speaker 1: between the two brothers leads to one of them dying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this all broke Carry Fallwell. His alcoholism got worse after
Speaker 1: this point, and Jerry would later recall the many nights
Speaker 1: that his father spent drinking heavily and sobbing over his
Speaker 1: brother and daughter. All these scandals further isolated the Fallwell
Speaker 1: clan from mainstream society and Lynchburg. And this was all
Speaker 1: exacerbated by the fact that Carry was a second generation atheist,
Speaker 1: so he was not in line with the values of
Speaker 1: the town either. Now, Jerry's mother, Helen, was a very
Speaker 1: different person. Her family were hardcore Baptists. Some sources will
Speaker 1: say that she wasn't religious until her son started his church,
Speaker 1: but this seems to be untrue. She even made sure
Speaker 1: that Jerry and Jean went to church every Sunday. Religion
Speaker 1: was a part of Jerry's life from the beginning, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't a huge part, and for a long time.
Speaker 1: It seems like he kind of took after his dad
Speaker 1: in that regard. So he grows up a little bit
Speaker 1: of a wild child. Now. The third person who helped
Speaker 1: to raise Jerry and Jean Folwell was there, black nanny
Speaker 1: David Brown. Jerry would later write. In the mornings, he
Speaker 1: bathed and dressed us, He held and rocked us. At naptime,
Speaker 1: he fed and changed us. He helped us with our
Speaker 1: first faltering steps, and he picked us up off the
Speaker 1: ground when we stumbled or fought or fell. He was
Speaker 1: practically a member of our family, but he ate alone
Speaker 1: on the back porch and sat in the shadows when
Speaker 1: he wasn't needed. Wow, it sounds like they really valued
Speaker 1: him as a human being. Yeah. Yeah, this is something
Speaker 1: that he writes regretfully about as an adult. Um as
Speaker 1: a kid. You know, he's a kid. From the beginning.
Speaker 1: He took after his father, both in the fact that
Speaker 1: he was filled with ambition and reckless energy. His father
Speaker 1: taught he and his brother to drive when they were
Speaker 1: both ten years old, which is, you know, the right
Speaker 1: age to start doing that. At uh, they were allowed
Speaker 1: to drive around the family property as much as they
Speaker 1: wanted when they were thirteen, carry light about their ages
Speaker 1: to get them driver's licenses. He was so cherry. Fallwell
Speaker 1: was the first kid at his school with a car,
Speaker 1: which obviously helped his social life. Kind of kind of
Speaker 1: washes away a little bit of the shame of your
Speaker 1: your dad killing your uncle. People are like, cool, look, car,
Speaker 1: he's got a car. I don't even care that his
Speaker 1: dad shoots at us. Jerry was a good student. He
Speaker 1: took after his father. He was intelligent, ambitious, and energetic.
Speaker 1: But he also took after his dad with a dedication
Speaker 1: to mean spirited pranks. When he was in fifth grade,
Speaker 1: he let a snake loose in his classroom. This will
Speaker 1: be the least disturbing of the pranks that Jerry Fallwell commits.
Speaker 1: You look so excited to tell me. I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to talk about I love it. It's like I love it.
Speaker 1: Whenever these people have pranks in their history, it's I
Speaker 1: it's like talking about Saddam Hussein threatening his principle with
Speaker 1: a gun like that. It's also the things that they
Speaker 1: call branks. It's like, yeah for rich people, it spranks
Speaker 1: poor people. It's like attempted murder. Uh yeah uh. In night,
Speaker 1: when Jerry was fifteen, his father died of liver failure.
Speaker 1: This hit Jerry hard and quite possibly had an effect
Speaker 1: on his behavior in high school. But also is the
Speaker 1: least surprising way that not alcoholic was gonna go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the only way carry Fallwall was going to go.
Speaker 1: Or shooting himself accidentally. Yeah. Uh. Jerry formed a gang
Speaker 1: called the Wall Gang with his friends based on the
Speaker 1: fact that they would meet at a wall to hang out.
Speaker 1: That's a that's very creative, very creative. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're aware of this, but Virginia in the nineteen
Speaker 1: forties was the world center of creativity. Uh. Jerry was
Speaker 1: the leader of the gang because he was the only
Speaker 1: one with a car, and he liked to lead his
Speaker 1: group into a series of fist five with other gangs
Speaker 1: around town. Winter's Rights that Fallwell insisted things never went
Speaker 1: beyond quote a few split lips, the occasional broken bone,
Speaker 1: and small scale property damage. Geez. The odd broken bone, Like,
Speaker 1: who of us hasn't formed a gang to break other
Speaker 1: people's bones a little bit? Why do you think I
Speaker 1: was late today, youthfully just cracking somebody over the head
Speaker 1: with a two by four. You know how I like
Speaker 1: to be a rascal. If you do it with a
Speaker 1: smile on your face, it's rascally, Yeah, exactly, as long
Speaker 1: as you're not frowning now. Jerry's pranks grew more brutal
Speaker 1: in his late teens. I'm going to quote again from
Speaker 1: God's right hand. Once to punish and neighbor the gang
Speaker 1: thought had called the police on them, they grabbed some
Speaker 1: old tar soaked railroad ties and let them on fire
Speaker 1: in front of the offender's home. They did not anticipate
Speaker 1: that the asphalt on the street would catch fire, but
Speaker 1: it did, and soon the entire street was in flames.
Speaker 1: Faultwell skill as a prankster also took a darker turn.
Speaker 1: Like his dad, he could be cruel. Many years later,
Speaker 1: he would recall taking on a teacher whom he described
Speaker 1: as a mean little man who pranced about in our
Speaker 1: physical ed classes and who exhibited prissy falsetto ways. Fallwell
Speaker 1: tackled him took off his pants, locked him in a
Speaker 1: storage closet, and then pin the man's pants to a
Speaker 1: bulletin board in another part of the school. Another time,
Speaker 1: he placed a live this is a teacher he did
Speaker 1: his jim teacher. Holy fuck. Teachers are usually the abusers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this guy, I think, And he clearly did
Speaker 1: it because he was like, you're gay, Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: Fwell things rips his pants off a school for that, No,
Speaker 1: he's rich. Wow. Another time teacher pantsing a fucking tea,
Speaker 1: panting and locking in a closet and mailing the pants
Speaker 1: to a wall. That's so fu up. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Another time, he placed a live rat in a teacher's drawer.
Speaker 1: When she opened the drawer, the rat jumped out and
Speaker 1: the teacher fell unconscious to the floor. Now that's a
Speaker 1: classic prank. Yeah, I mean that's the only one you
Speaker 1: could actually consider a prank. Yeah, that, I guess. The
Speaker 1: snake those are like good natured country prints. If the
Speaker 1: snake bite is like like a gardener snake or something, Yeah,
Speaker 1: then it's fine. Yeah, then it's fine. Yeah. Abusing physically
Speaker 1: and panting or lighting someone's house on a fire. I
Speaker 1: don't know pranks. Uh. Later in life, Jerry would say
Speaker 1: that these pranks and straight up assaults are how he
Speaker 1: began to understand the principle of cause and effect. Actions
Speaker 1: responsible or irresponsible lead to consequences. But of course there's
Speaker 1: no evidence that Jerry fall will ever suffered any consequences
Speaker 1: as a result of his incredibly bad behavior. As an
Speaker 1: older man, he smoked with regret about these actions, and
Speaker 1: the idea he seems to want to push by telling
Speaker 1: these stories is that he had a growing realization of
Speaker 1: how bad he'd been and that helped drive him to God.
Speaker 1: And this is where I have to point out something important.
Speaker 1: If you spend any time at all around evangelical Christian communities,
Speaker 1: at least the mainstream ones, you'll notice something peculiar. A
Speaker 1: shocking number of high profile figures in that community will
Speaker 1: claim to have some sort of tremendously dark past selling drugs,
Speaker 1: are being involved in prostitution, or being you know, some
Speaker 1: sort of criminal, being violent, or whatever. For many popular
Speaker 1: evangelical speakers, this dark past is an integral part of
Speaker 1: their backstory. These stories are usually lies and always exaggerated,
Speaker 1: and they serve primarily to highlight the power of Christ grace.
Speaker 1: Most of our details on Jerry's early life come from
Speaker 1: Jerry himself. And while Winters, who researched the man thoroughly
Speaker 1: does believe the stuff that I've related to you is true,
Speaker 1: I have my doubts that fall will ever regretted any
Speaker 1: of his actions. Um, but in any case, it's important
Speaker 1: to Jerry fallwell or it was because now he's dead, uh,
Speaker 1: that you know that he was a bad guy before
Speaker 1: he found the light of the Lord. It always really
Speaker 1: creeps me out whenever, like really horrible people will say like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I was horrible and then I had a
Speaker 1: daughter and I was like, oh man, I've been horrible,
Speaker 1: or like oh and then I It's always very confusing
Speaker 1: to me that they don't understand empathy yet all, and
Speaker 1: that they literally need to torture people to learn empathy.
Speaker 1: How is it not something that you just feel towards people?
Speaker 1: Towards people because I think in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: because you grow up rich and you don't have to
Speaker 1: That's what's so crazy, right. It seems like money just
Speaker 1: takes away people's like value systems or replaces it, and
Speaker 1: then they're like, oh no, I need to rape a
Speaker 1: girl like brock turn or something to to understand, you know, like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, thinks actions of consequences. Why do we need
Speaker 1: to be your like like experiment like other people. That's
Speaker 1: not right for you to learn your morals on other people.
Speaker 1: And it only it really only seems to be with
Speaker 1: girls in particular, because you only usually hear the story
Speaker 1: with Like when I had a daughter, I understood, and
Speaker 1: it's like nobody's ever like, you know, I thought it
Speaker 1: was cool to kill cats until I had a kitten,
Speaker 1: and then I was like, oh, all this cat murdering
Speaker 1: I've been doing is a bad thing. Nobody nobody says that.
Speaker 1: They just say, like I thought sexual harassment was fun
Speaker 1: until I had a daughter. Now I realized it's not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's safe. Same with these like rich ass guys
Speaker 1: like Jerry, it's like, oh, well, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: you couldn't actually do these fucked up abusive things until
Speaker 1: I did them and nothing happened to me. That makes
Speaker 1: no sense. What a guy's house on fire, Jerry Fallwell,
Speaker 1: Sophie is telling me that it's well passed time for
Speaker 1: an ad break. Sophia, Uh, you have any ads you
Speaker 1: want to tell. I mean, as you know, I love
Speaker 1: any kind of goods and services. Um, But personally, I
Speaker 1: have a podcast named Private Parts Unknown that I co
Speaker 1: host with Courtney's Kossak, and it's about love and sexuality
Speaker 1: around the world. And we're about to go to Mexico City.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be really fun. That's one of my favorite cities.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk after the podcast for your depths. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's great, Mexico City. Well, thank you for bringing that up.
Speaker 1: I forgot because I got so excited by the bagel
Speaker 1: thing at Um. Should we go to ads now, Sophie,
Speaker 1: Sophie siating, we should go to ads products. It's the
Speaker 1: most wonderful time of the year. But of course, wonderful
Speaker 1: people are generally boring, and if you're a fan of
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards, you probably would prefer to hear about
Speaker 1: the very worst people in all of history, which is
Speaker 1: why you're listening to the show and why you should
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Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards has partnered with Audible to give you
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Speaker 1: this deal. Again. That's audible dot com slash behind or
Speaker 1: text behind to five hundred five hundred. We're back, and
Speaker 1: Sophie is refusing to give me back my sling um,
Speaker 1: which is probably a responsible move, Um, but I'm still furious,
Speaker 1: living angry. Imagine how furious I would be if you
Speaker 1: slung something and it hit Anderson. It's a bagel dogs
Speaker 1: love them, but if it hits and with a force.
Speaker 1: It's not so she doesn't like everything bagels? What kind
Speaker 1: of bagels? Does she like? Blueberry? All right, I'll throw
Speaker 1: blueberry next time Anderson's in the room. See this, This
Speaker 1: is how empathy works. This is this is a man
Speaker 1: who understands empathy. Still not getting back your sling, though, dude, Sorry,
Speaker 1: fair enough. We're talking Jerry Fallwell j falls uh weird.
Speaker 1: I don't like that, j Faul. I always give my
Speaker 1: subjects a terrible nickname. I don't like it. You don't
Speaker 1: like that, Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff sounds like it's a
Speaker 1: Missy Elliott exclusive cheer. I don't know. He doesn't get
Speaker 1: that reference, but I did, and I liked. Sophie says
Speaker 1: it's good. Do you seriously not know who Missy Elliott is?
Speaker 1: I feel like you're doing this on purpose. I'm really not.
Speaker 1: I thought it was Ariana Grande for a very long time.
Speaker 1: That is what it is. Wait, no, I called her
Speaker 1: Grand's called her Ariana grand There we go. I forgot
Speaker 1: which embarrassing thing I got wrong. Only one of Jaff's
Speaker 1: pranks had any sort of long term impact on him.
Speaker 1: In his senior year, Jerry and his friends got the
Speaker 1: combination of the school safe. They stole huge numbers of
Speaker 1: lunch tickets and handed them out to their friends in
Speaker 1: the locker room. They considered this a harmless prank. The
Speaker 1: school considered this thousands of dollars and theft. Uh. Jerry
Speaker 1: certainly could have faced criminal charges for this because it
Speaker 1: was thousands of dollars of theft. Instead, he was simply
Speaker 1: denied the privilege of addressing the school as class valedictorian.
Speaker 1: So God, the consequences really ruined his life. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that really fucked things up for him. Jerry went to
Speaker 1: Lynchburg College after high school. Jerry Fallwell majored in mechanical
Speaker 1: engineering and excelb at math and physics. He didn't spend
Speaker 1: any school time studying religion. He later recalled, though, that
Speaker 1: his mother's habit of listening to Charles Fuller's Old Fashioned
Speaker 1: Revival Hour on the radio every Sunday had an impact
Speaker 1: on him. Early in nineteen fifty two, while hanging out
Speaker 1: at the cafe with his Wall Gang friends, Faulwell asked
Speaker 1: if anyone in town knew a church that had preaching
Speaker 1: like Charles Fuller's show. One of his friends advised the
Speaker 1: Park Avenue Baptist Church. He said the church had good
Speaker 1: music and most importantly, pretty girls. In search of these girls,
Speaker 1: Jerry Folwell made the fateful decision to attend church on
Speaker 1: January nineteen fifty two Dun doun Dun duntan. During that service,
Speaker 1: he met a young woman, Mazel Pate, who played piano
Speaker 1: for the church. Soon after, Mazel and Jerry would wind
Speaker 1: up dating and then marrying. They would be together for
Speaker 1: the rest of Jerry's life, and Young Fallwell found more Mazel.
Speaker 1: I think she was pretty shitty too, Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Young Fallwell found more than just a soul mate at
Speaker 1: the Park Avenue Church. He found Jesus. He would later
Speaker 1: recall that his journey to becoming a born again Christian
Speaker 1: started when he learned that the world of man was
Speaker 1: run by Satan while the world of God was ruled
Speaker 1: by Jesus. Jerry had seen more of the dark side
Speaker 1: of the world of man than most kids. By this point.
Speaker 1: He turned away from the from him, from himself and darkness.
Speaker 1: The darkness call came from inside the house, Jerry Fallwell,
Speaker 1: that you've been and witness to you did strips a
Speaker 1: man's pants off, beats him up and locks him in
Speaker 1: a closet. Boy, people are awful. Yeah, He's like, this
Speaker 1: is really a lot of arson and us all going
Speaker 1: on in I don't know, at least around me. Seems
Speaker 1: like people are really violent right around me. Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm like at the epicenter, idiot. Uh yeah, so uh yeah.
Speaker 1: Jerry decided after this point that he was going to
Speaker 1: turn away from the darkness of the world of man
Speaker 1: and align himself with the light of the world of God.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six, at age twenty two, Jerry Falwell
Speaker 1: founded a church of his own, the Thomas Road Baptist Church.
Speaker 1: It made himself the pastor, and he started preaching. According
Speaker 1: to the Western Illinois Historical Review, quote from the time
Speaker 1: he founded his church, all of his activities flowed from
Speaker 1: his efforts to build it to RBC, built a home
Speaker 1: for alcoholics, a haven for unwed mothers, and established a
Speaker 1: television ministry at the urging of Folwell. Jerry's television and
Speaker 1: radio show, The Old Time Gospel Hour, was a direct
Speaker 1: imitation of the radio preacher his mother had loved. By
Speaker 1: making the jump to television, Folwell became one of the
Speaker 1: pioneers of televangelism. A guy named Percy Crawford was the
Speaker 1: actual first televangelist, and both men owed a debt to
Speaker 1: fascist slash Catholic priest Charles Coughlin in their attempts to
Speaker 1: create a media empire based around his preaching. But Jerry
Speaker 1: was one of the first ones to really make a
Speaker 1: televangelist thing like as the as like the foundation of
Speaker 1: his career. Quick question, how does pastoring work? You can
Speaker 1: just make yourself a pastor. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm a pastor. Now, this is America. There's I don't
Speaker 1: think there's really any more to it than that. That's
Speaker 1: fucking awesome. Yeah, it's pretty great. I've I've been considering coming.
Speaker 1: I've I'm considering becoming a freelance cult leader. Um so
Speaker 1: I've been looking into how easy it is to just
Speaker 1: declare yourself or whatever of whatever religion. It turns out
Speaker 1: there's no rules around that sort of thing. Well, if
Speaker 1: you need a sidekick, I'm here and I love just
Speaker 1: I don't know, brainwashing people, I guess that's how other
Speaker 1: people put it. The key is we can't spend more
Speaker 1: than twenty hours a week on the cult related business good.
Speaker 1: I don't have time for that. I wanted for this
Speaker 1: to be more than a part time thing, exactly. It's
Speaker 1: a side hustle, yes like that. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a cult for millennials. And as a result of that,
Speaker 1: we've got to be like contract employees. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: it's like five hours driving for left, a couple hours
Speaker 1: than I do, stand up at night, and no health care.
Speaker 1: What a beautiful way to live. Our generations really got
Speaker 1: it made in the shade. So like his father, Jerry
Speaker 1: Fallwell proved to have a brilliant head for business. Unlike
Speaker 1: his father, all of Jerry's businesses were above board and legal.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I actually see. I told you you're gonna
Speaker 1: like carry Fallwell way better already miss him? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: miss him? What you do and carry then from alcoholism.
Speaker 1: He's shooting at people's feet in heaven. Now Hell must
Speaker 1: be missing an angel. In nineteen sixty seven, Jerry founded
Speaker 1: his first school, the Lynchburg Christian Academy. He became convinced
Speaker 1: of the necessity of creating a separate Christian education system,
Speaker 1: one that could protect students from the evils of the
Speaker 1: world of Satan. Some of the evils he preached against
Speaker 1: were imminently sensible given his difficult upbringing. He railed against
Speaker 1: alcohol and drunkenness do in part to the horrifying example
Speaker 1: set down by his dad and uncle. But Jerry also
Speaker 1: preached against integration. So I was waiting for when that
Speaker 1: was going to read, Yeah, yeah, we getta get a
Speaker 1: nice dose or racism. Here, I'm gonna quote again from
Speaker 1: God's right hand. One early sermon from nineteen fifty eight
Speaker 1: has come down to us, printed in the newsletter that
Speaker 1: the Fall Will distributed to those who watched his television show.
Speaker 1: It is curious that he chose his sermon for the
Speaker 1: first installment of the newsletter because it did not treat
Speaker 1: one of his usual subject topics. The sermon is entitled
Speaker 1: Segregation or Integration, which, unsurprisingly given the sermon was preached
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty eight in south central Virginia, Folwell argued
Speaker 1: in favor of segregation. Follow sermon begins by blaming the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court for the chaos and racial tension that was
Speaker 1: then on the rise. He also noted that the communist
Speaker 1: countries were using the racial tension as a propaganda tool
Speaker 1: throughout the world. Indeed, Folwell did not blame blacks for
Speaker 1: causing the trouble. The true negro does not want integration.
Speaker 1: He realizes his potential is far better among his own.
Speaker 1: Folwell blamed the push for integration first on Moscow, second
Speaker 1: on politicians using the issue for their own ends, and
Speaker 1: finally on the devil himself, who boxed God out of
Speaker 1: the Supreme Courts jurisprudence when it rendered its nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: four decision, and Brown versus the Board of Education ending
Speaker 1: legal segregation. If Chief Justice Earl Warren and his associates
Speaker 1: had known God's word and desired to do the Lord's will,
Speaker 1: I am quite confident that the nineteen fifty four decision
Speaker 1: would never have been made. Folwell said, what could possibly
Speaker 1: have been worked out in a scriptural and orderly way
Speaker 1: has now become a touchy problem. Touchy just a deep
Speaker 1: sigh of ye. It's obviously terrible, um, although it's also
Speaker 1: obviously like you throw a rock in Virginia and you'll
Speaker 1: find somebody who believes basically the same thing. Of course,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah uh. And in a little bit of fairness,
Speaker 1: Jerry would completely change his mind on segregation later in
Speaker 1: life and would devote years to preaching against it. Uh.
Speaker 1: Not that long after this, but while the civil rights
Speaker 1: movements saw its most crucial difficult hours, Jerry Folwell preached
Speaker 1: against it. He leaved God had decreed the segregation of races,
Speaker 1: and he cited, for one things, God's decision that the
Speaker 1: Jews should be his chosen people as evidence of the
Speaker 1: fundamental validity of segregation. Wow, I've never heard that spin.
Speaker 1: That is quite quite the racist logic there. That's pretty insane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's neat to run the new racist logic that I
Speaker 1: hadn't run into before. Yeah, whoa, that's I've never connected
Speaker 1: those before. Thanks for bringing us into the fold. Thanks
Speaker 1: for that's Jerry. Now, Jerry started to change his mind
Speaker 1: about segregation in the mid nineteen sixties. There were a
Speaker 1: number of events that led to this, but the single
Speaker 1: searing experience he would later cite as key to his
Speaker 1: conversion on the issue, was the day that his shoe shiner,
Speaker 1: a black man named Lewis, asked him a question. He
Speaker 1: told Jerry he was a fan of the pastor's sermons
Speaker 1: and listened to them on the radio regularly. Then he
Speaker 1: asked if he would be able to join Fallwell's church
Speaker 1: Jerry later wrote that this question left him utterly speechless
Speaker 1: because like he wasn't allowing black people in his church,
Speaker 1: suddenly was confronted directly with the fact that he was
Speaker 1: racist as ship. In the mid nineteen sixties, Jerry Fallwell
Speaker 1: hired his first non white employee, the Indonesian musician Paul Tan.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty eight, he opened the Thomas Road Baptist
Speaker 1: Church to black members in nineteen sixty Wait, hold on
Speaker 1: a second. He opened the church to black members in
Speaker 1: sixty eight. When did he talk to Shoeshiner? That was
Speaker 1: like in the somewhere like sixty four or sixty five.
Speaker 1: It took him a while, so so he had he
Speaker 1: had an epiphany, and then it took him three to
Speaker 1: four years to still change his mind. Again we're talking
Speaker 1: these are his reclations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's also
Speaker 1: like exactly what we were saying, like, oh, I needed
Speaker 1: to first think that black people weren't human too, then
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I've learned a powerful lesson. What the funk?
Speaker 1: I don't buy any of this? Yeah, And it's also
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that when he does open his church
Speaker 1: up is like when the Civil rights movement hit that
Speaker 1: point of critical mass. Like it's not like he got
Speaker 1: on board segregation when it was still like it's one
Speaker 1: thing to be like in favor of segregation, then realize
Speaker 1: you're wrong at a time when like it matters. Takes
Speaker 1: some courage to be like, no, I was wrong. Like
Speaker 1: once the civil rights its movements past its critical point,
Speaker 1: he's like, oh shit, I guess this is the way
Speaker 1: things are going. I'm gonna open my church up. Yeah, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: progress seems to be happening everywhere. Okay, I'll join. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like being cool with gay marriage in
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen. Yeah, yeah, and that being your first
Speaker 1: step there. And the thing is, it's it's weird because
Speaker 1: right now everybody talks about like cancel culture and like
Speaker 1: oh what you can't be better like change or anything.
Speaker 1: And I absolutely think that that is what we want
Speaker 1: from people. But I don't know how much of the
Speaker 1: story that Jerry fall Will made up about himself is
Speaker 1: actually real or true. And that's really what I object to,
Speaker 1: not the fact that he changed from being a racist
Speaker 1: to not being a racist. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's good
Speaker 1: that he got better on segregation, But the question is
Speaker 1: do I think that it was a matter of moral
Speaker 1: courage and realizing he was wrong, or do I think
Speaker 1: it was a matter of he realized where the wind
Speaker 1: was a blow in exactly. And I do think in
Speaker 1: his head he does believe the version of the story
Speaker 1: where he has a change of heart. I do think
Speaker 1: he believes that in his head because I think he
Speaker 1: needs to think he's a good person, and people like
Speaker 1: that makeup stories to justify himself as like a better person.
Speaker 1: Just like he justified burning that house down by they
Speaker 1: were cold inside, they were held inside. Central heating wasn't
Speaker 1: around yet, I was being helpful. Yeah, just like his
Speaker 1: dad justified shooting at that kid's feet because he had
Speaker 1: to deal with a fly. I'm going to use that
Speaker 1: that was a joke. Okay, you know, just don't get it. Snowflake, snowflake.
Speaker 1: Snowflakes hate being shot at idiots. So um yeah. Jerry
Speaker 1: was always adamant that the civil rights movement had no
Speaker 1: impact on his decision to integrate his church in school.
Speaker 1: He framed his change as entirely an internal revelation. I
Speaker 1: realized that I was completely wrong. What I had been
Speaker 1: taught was completely wrong. For me. It was a scriptural
Speaker 1: and personal realization that segregation was evil. I realized it
Speaker 1: was not taught in the Bible. So kind of weird
Speaker 1: that he's like, specifically doesn't give credit to the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement. He's like, specifically, none of you made a difference.
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King had nothing to do with me letting
Speaker 1: black people into my church. It was all me, baby,
Speaker 1: that's so much more. That's still so racist. Jerry Falwell
Speaker 1: had my own civil rights movement in my head, and
Speaker 1: it was way better than the weird Like in my version,
Speaker 1: I was the leader. Actually wasn't. M okay, there was
Speaker 1: no Malcolm X. There was no one. Really, it was
Speaker 1: a black panther changed everything. I did a great job.
Speaker 1: I did a great job. You're welcome. You're welcome, Jerry Follwell.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, yeah so uh. In nineteen seventy one, Jerry
Speaker 1: Falwell started the Lynchburg Baptist College. It was later renamed
Speaker 1: Liberty University. The college was something of a loss leader
Speaker 1: for Fallwell's burgeoning empire, relied heavily on donations and endowments
Speaker 1: from major donors, and was a heavy debt for much
Speaker 1: of Jerry's tenure. As the head of the school. But
Speaker 1: still it succeeded in providing religious higher education to whole
Speaker 1: generations of Evangelical Christians. All these things would probably have
Speaker 1: been enough to keep a normal man occupied his entire life,
Speaker 1: and perhaps they would have done so for Jerry Folwell.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen seventy three, something happened that would change
Speaker 1: his life in the very essence of American Christianity forever,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade. This landmark
Speaker 1: case established a woman's right to get an abortion without
Speaker 1: excessive governmental interference. Folwell later wrote, when he read about
Speaker 1: the ruling in the newspaper quote, I sat there staring
Speaker 1: at the Roe v. Wade story, growing more and more
Speaker 1: fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Courts Act, and
Speaker 1: wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.
Speaker 1: And when we come back, we're gonna talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the surprising history of how American Evangelical Christians
Speaker 1: thought about abortion prior to nineteen seventy three. Don't ly
Speaker 1: me hanging like that. I mean, it's an ad plug time.
Speaker 1: You know what is also protected from excessive government interference
Speaker 1: The products and services that advertise on our show. Was
Speaker 1: that a good I liked it? Thank you, Sophie. Sophie approves, Sophia, Yeah,
Speaker 1: no co sign. I feel like you need to have
Speaker 1: both the self support all right, yeah, it's a rubber stamp.
Speaker 1: This it's like when you need to shoot launch a
Speaker 1: nuclear missile from a submarine. Exactly exactly. We can't go,
Speaker 1: but now we can. We are carolel sitting a customers.
Speaker 1: We've surrounded him. You're your solf surrounded, so frounded and
Speaker 1: and now I'm capable of empathetically viewing women as people.
Speaker 1: All the took was it is. You don't even need
Speaker 1: to have a daughter or nothing. I have a sister.
Speaker 1: She's a dog. Oh my god, you called Anderson a girl.
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of you. I know I usually call
Speaker 1: all dogs boys, but Anderson is a girl. You're right,
Speaker 1: we've we've beat that into my head. We should really
Speaker 1: go to ads. This has been taking. Yeah, yeah, all
Speaker 1: for all the fans. Anderson is a girl. So stop
Speaker 1: calling her boy on Twitter. Also, stop stop asking me
Speaker 1: to post pick. I think a lot of them think
Speaker 1: Anderson's my dog. I mean, she she's in your family,
Speaker 1: she is in my family. Yeah, oh boy, but I
Speaker 1: birth thrown from my forehead. We are zeus okay, ad
Speaker 1: break terrible transitions here ads products, We're back now. As
Speaker 1: his preaching on segregation probably keyed you went on. Jerry
Speaker 1: Fallwell was not a big fan of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: He'd been pissed at in nineteen sixty two when they
Speaker 1: ruled on Ingle versus Fatality, which was the ruling that
Speaker 1: decided it was unconstitutional for schools to force students to pray.
Speaker 1: He wrote of this, when a group of nine idiots
Speaker 1: can pass a ruling down so that it is illegal
Speaker 1: to read the Bible in our public schools, they need
Speaker 1: to be called idiots. But Ingle VI of Italy did
Speaker 1: not convinced Refallwell to get into politics. See for a
Speaker 1: very long time in America, it was seen as somewhat foul,
Speaker 1: even obscene for pastors to wade directly into national politics.
Speaker 1: Sharon Overcast and the evangelical Christian who later worked with
Speaker 1: Falwell recalled that prior to the seventies, politics was always
Speaker 1: labeled as dirty, as something to stay out of. For
Speaker 1: Fallwell and many other Christian extremists, Roe Vie Wade was
Speaker 1: a wake up call I'm going to quote now from
Speaker 1: an essay on Jerry Fallwell by Doug Bannwort of the
Speaker 1: Western Illinois Historical Review. Many religious conservatives, like Falwell would
Speaker 1: later identify the Road Decision as the critical issue that
Speaker 1: awakened them from a long political slumber after largely being
Speaker 1: inactive in the nineteen sixties. As Fallwell put it, the
Speaker 1: decision by the Supreme Court legalizing abortion on demand did
Speaker 1: more to destroy our nation than any other decision it
Speaker 1: has made. Muehler later called the nineteen seventy three Road
Speaker 1: Decision the stick of dynamite that exploded the issue. For evangelicals,
Speaker 1: Roevie Wade was truly explosive, and that it legitimized abortion
Speaker 1: into national law, a practice deemed defensive, barbaric, savage, and
Speaker 1: a violation of God's precious handiwork here on earth. Not
Speaker 1: only did Rovie Wade provide a wake up called a
Speaker 1: Fallwell and religious conservatives, and also resulted in later mobilization
Speaker 1: and activism on two closely related areas, gay rights and
Speaker 1: women's liberation. Rights for gays and women were often closely
Speaker 1: tied to the abortion issue. As family issues, if women
Speaker 1: could get an abortion, no longer did they need a
Speaker 1: man to take care of them, No longer would they
Speaker 1: be confined to the kitchen, household or local pta meeting.
Speaker 1: The newfounded dependence could result in a full frontal assault
Speaker 1: on the traditional nuclear family, which many conservatives believed to
Speaker 1: be the way God desired the family structure to look like. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: Saturday was International Safe Abortion Day, so Apple Happy that
Speaker 1: Day to everybody, have a happy that Day. We did
Speaker 1: a series two on it on the podcast Private Parts
Speaker 1: on Now and you should check it out. Check it
Speaker 1: out International Safe Abortion Day. It's a good holiday, better
Speaker 1: holiday than International Podcast Day, which it is today. Embery Days,
Speaker 1: nationals Something Day. Yeah, it's been like National Siblings daylight
Speaker 1: four times. And I text my brother, who is a
Speaker 1: doctor who is not abused. I'm trying to do I'm
Speaker 1: tired of doing the same joke where I just take
Speaker 1: a picture of an empty chair and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: love my sister. I'm an only child. I'm tired now. Uh.
Speaker 1: Jerry got together with several other aggrieved religious people in
Speaker 1: order to fight back against the Supreme Court's overreach. One
Speaker 1: of these people was Paul way Rich, a Catholic, and
Speaker 1: another was Howard Phillips, a Jew. Together they formed a
Speaker 1: political action group called the Moral Majority in nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: and Howard, yeah, Philip seemed to mostly be there. No,
Speaker 1: we're not just Christians, I know. We got ashamed of him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's pretty lame. So the Moral Majority was formed specifically
Speaker 1: to lobby to end abortion, reinstate school prayer, and force
Speaker 1: men and women back into traditional gender roles. Their goal
Speaker 1: was nothing less than to legislate fundamentalist Christian morality is
Speaker 1: the law of the land, and most sources you'll read
Speaker 1: on this, including Michael Winters, will note that Rob Wade
Speaker 1: was the catalyst for all this, but not everyone agrees
Speaker 1: on that point. Other researchers will point out that segregation
Speaker 1: may itself have been a more direct inspiration for the
Speaker 1: formation of the Moral Majority than abortion. Randall Balmer, a
Speaker 1: professor at Dartmouth University and a historian, calls the idea
Speaker 1: that abortion was the inciting incident for the Moral Majority
Speaker 1: one of the most durable myths in modern history. It
Speaker 1: is certainly true and documented beyond debate, that abortion was
Speaker 1: the primary issue the Moral Majority put at the center
Speaker 1: of their activism. They even called themselves new abolitionists and
Speaker 1: their quest to end abortion. The act of comparing themselves
Speaker 1: to anti slavery crusaders take some enormous balls. Given what
Speaker 1: I'm about to read next quote, the abortion myth quickly
Speaker 1: collapses under historical scrutiny. In fact, it wasn't until nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, a full six years after Row, that evangelical
Speaker 1: leaders at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich seized
Speaker 1: on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying
Speaker 1: cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why
Speaker 1: because the anti abortion crusade was more palatable than the
Speaker 1: religious rights real motive protecting segregated schools. Say, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it's a tough competition. Who do we hate more women
Speaker 1: or black people? Oh? My god, black women. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that is the number one hated group. Yeah. So, Bomber
Speaker 1: points out with exhaustive documentation that throughout the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: and early seventies, abortion was not a big deal for
Speaker 1: most Christians, even fundamentalist ones. In nineteen sixty eight, the
Speaker 1: Christian Medical Society and Christianity Today wrote that abortion was
Speaker 1: not sinful and that quote, individual health, family welfare, and
Speaker 1: social responsibility could all justify the termination of a pregnancy.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy one, the Southern Baptist Convention had passed
Speaker 1: a resolution stating, quote Southern Baptists to work for legislation
Speaker 1: that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions
Speaker 1: as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and
Speaker 1: carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage the emotional, mental,
Speaker 1: and physical health of the mother relatively woke for Christians today.
Speaker 1: At least, the Convention reaffirmed this decision twice after Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade in nineteen seventy four and in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: and the immediate wake of the ruling. W A. Criswell,
Speaker 1: the Convention's former president and one of the most prominent
Speaker 1: evangelical Christians in America, said, I have always felt that
Speaker 1: it was only after a child was born and had
Speaker 1: a life separate from its mother that it became an
Speaker 1: individual person. And it has always therefore seemed to me
Speaker 1: that what is best for the mother and for the
Speaker 1: future should be allowed. Hallelujah, Yep, things really took a turn.
Speaker 1: Abortion had been a significant issue for Catholics for quite
Speaker 1: some time. However, so it's like Evangelical Protestants didn't really
Speaker 1: care about abortion prior to nineteen seventy nine. Catholics, you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't. They weren't down with condoms. I mean, they
Speaker 1: certainly weren't down with abortion. The church has been pretty
Speaker 1: consistently anti choice for quite a while. But American Protestants
Speaker 1: and Evangelicals didn't really care about the matter one way
Speaker 1: or the other. What many of them did care about, however,
Speaker 1: was integration because they were Southerners in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies and just really, really racist. I'm gonna quote
Speaker 1: from Balmer again. In May nineteen sixty nine, a group
Speaker 1: of African American parents in Holmes County, Mississippi, sued the
Speaker 1: Treasury Department to prevent three new whites only K through
Speaker 1: twelve private academies from securing full tax exempt status, arguing
Speaker 1: that their discriminatory policies prevented them from being considered charitable institutions.
Speaker 1: The schools have been founded in the mid nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: in response to the desegregation of public schools set in
Speaker 1: motion by Brown versus the Board of Education decision in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four. In nineteen sixty nine, the first year
Speaker 1: of desegregation, the number of white students enrolled in public
Speaker 1: schools in Holmes County dropped from seven hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: one to eight. The following year, that number fell to zero.
Speaker 1: So one of the responses of the Christian community throughout
Speaker 1: the South was to open private schools so that they
Speaker 1: did not have to If they were private religiou schools,
Speaker 1: you can keep black people out and then we can
Speaker 1: still have our whites just like just like Jesus intended,
Speaker 1: and then allow of everyone in stages. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of the birth of the private religious school system in America.
Speaker 1: Excluding black people. Fuck pretty cool in Green versus Kennedy.
Speaker 1: David Kennedy was Secretary of Treasury at the time decided
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy, the plaintiffs won a preliminary injunction which
Speaker 1: denied the segregation academies tax exempt status until further review.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, the government was solidifying its position on
Speaker 1: such schools. Later that year, President Richard Nixon ordered the
Speaker 1: Internal Revenue Service to enact a new policy denying taxes
Speaker 1: exemptions to all segregated schools in the United States. Wow,
Speaker 1: and she did a good thing. Yeah, Nixon was actually
Speaker 1: pretty good on that issue. Was not really like the religions. Again,
Speaker 1: this is before the religious rite exists. Like fundamentalist Christians
Speaker 1: are not a voting block at this point in any
Speaker 1: meaningful But Nixon also like dropped a lot of slurs
Speaker 1: and stuff. That's why I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, but
Speaker 1: he didn't give a shit about God. I mean, I
Speaker 1: meant in terms of black people. I just didn't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he would follow that, you know, he was good about
Speaker 1: this one. Yeah. Nixon's one of those weird ones where
Speaker 1: it's like you can listen to hours of him using
Speaker 1: racial slurs and then he'll ban racist schools from being
Speaker 1: tax exempt and you can listen to him like threatened
Speaker 1: to have journalists murdered, and he'll start the e p
Speaker 1: A too. He's a confusing one. He's a confusing one.
Speaker 1: Uh now, Um. Reading all of this added some additional
Speaker 1: context to something I'd read in God's Right Hand, which
Speaker 1: definitely takes the the angle that like the moral majority
Speaker 1: was all about abortion. Like this, Balmer is kind of
Speaker 1: an opposed to other scholars when he puts segregation at
Speaker 1: the center of why the Christian right becomes a political thing.
Speaker 1: But it did add some extra context to this quote.
Speaker 1: Follwell had been profoundly disturbed by the actions of the
Speaker 1: federal government legalizing abortion, removing prayer from the public school
Speaker 1: sending the I R s after Christian academies. To him,
Speaker 1: this amounted to a political assault on his turf, the
Speaker 1: moral fiber of the nation, and he could begin to
Speaker 1: envisit in politics as the means to beating back the assault.
Speaker 1: So this is one of the weird that God's Right
Speaker 1: Hand is like a really good biography by Winters. It
Speaker 1: has a lot of really good info in it, but
Speaker 1: Winters is also kind of comes across is Well. He's
Speaker 1: critical of a lot that Fallwell did fundamentally sympathetic to
Speaker 1: the man as a human being, and I think he
Speaker 1: misses like the fact that he phrases it as sending
Speaker 1: the I R s after Christian academies, And I'm sure
Speaker 1: that's how Fallwell would like to report it, Like what
Speaker 1: fall what was piste about? Was them stopping Christians from
Speaker 1: segregating schools. Yeah, and it is something that Winters doesn't
Speaker 1: really touch on enough. But I I really think Balmer's
Speaker 1: probably on the right side of this one. But I'm
Speaker 1: not a scholar, so um yeah. Balmer makes a strong
Speaker 1: case that the birth of the Christian Right as a
Speaker 1: political movement was very much inspired by evangelical religious leaders
Speaker 1: to keep black people out of their churches and schools.
Speaker 1: Quote the Green v. Connolly ruling provided a necessary first step.
Speaker 1: It captured the attention of evangelical leaders, especially as the
Speaker 1: i r S began sending questionnaires to church related segregation academies,
Speaker 1: including Fallwell's own Lynchburg Christian School, inquiring about their racial policies.
Speaker 1: Fallwell was furious in some states. He famously complained, it's
Speaker 1: easier to open a massage parlor than a Christian school.
Speaker 1: Is that massage parlor open to people of all races? Jerry?
Speaker 1: Because if it is, I don't have any problem with it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Not if you could help it, Yeah, not if he
Speaker 1: could help it. One such school, Bob Jones University, a
Speaker 1: fundamentalist college in Greenville, South Carolina, was especially obdurate. The
Speaker 1: i R S had sent its first letter to Bob
Speaker 1: Jones University in November nineteen seventy to ascertain whether or
Speaker 1: not it discriminated on the basis of race. The school
Speaker 1: responded defiantly. It did not admit African Americans. It wasn't
Speaker 1: isn't even they You couldn't be taking someone of a
Speaker 1: different race. Two, I think what like their school stuff
Speaker 1: even recently right that they were in the news for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's continued up until the modern era. Yeah, they Bob
Speaker 1: Jones really sticks by segregation. Kind of wild because this
Speaker 1: is so recent. Yeah, the the birth of the religious
Speaker 1: right is very much tight into Bob Jones University wanting
Speaker 1: to be as racist to school as they can possibly be.
Speaker 1: Cool mission cool mission Now. Bob Jones University did try
Speaker 1: to throw the I R. S a bone to maintain
Speaker 1: their tax exempt status. They took in a single black student.
Speaker 1: He dropped out a month later for reasons that I'm
Speaker 1: sure are completely unfathomable to everybody listening. Yeah, why would
Speaker 1: that have happened? Yeah, well, he didn't like love the
Speaker 1: new school. That's so crazy. It seems like he would
Speaker 1: have been totally comfortable things like it would have been
Speaker 1: a great time for him. Yeah. In nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: the school was finally forced to admit black students on
Speaker 1: a whiter basis, but they qualified that they were only
Speaker 1: admitting married black people. The fear was that unmarried black
Speaker 1: students might wind up fucking white students. Couldn't have that.
Speaker 1: Interracial dating was strictly prohibited, so in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: the I R s who are the heroes of the
Speaker 1: story today, rescinded Bob Jones University's tax exempt status. Good, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: the hey man, they're on the right side of this one.
Speaker 1: Paul way Rich and Jerry Fallwell were deeply unhappy at
Speaker 1: all this government overreach. They chose to focus on the
Speaker 1: Carter administration, which actually doesn't a lot of sense. The
Speaker 1: Nixon administration had started going after evangelical schools, Bob Jones
Speaker 1: University had lost its taxignum status more than a year
Speaker 1: before Carter took office, but way Rich and Fallwell ignored
Speaker 1: all this. They made it their overwriting goal to ensure
Speaker 1: a conservative kicked Carter out of office. Interesting that fact
Speaker 1: they do an attack the Republican Party for their role
Speaker 1: in this. They just go after Jimmy Carter. Interesting kind
Speaker 1: of makes you wonder if maybe it had more to
Speaker 1: do with the fact that these were Richmond than Christians.
Speaker 1: But that's just a conspiracy theory. On my part, I
Speaker 1: mean being rich, like crazy rich in this country is
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory. Now, the leaders of the Moral Majority
Speaker 1: knew that segregation was not exactly a major vote winning
Speaker 1: issue in nineteen seventy nine. They were not going to
Speaker 1: ignite an evangelical political movement by focusing on racism or
Speaker 1: any of the other issues they were most obsessed with
Speaker 1: at the time. Way Rich and Folwell were also both
Speaker 1: opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment. They sup ordered the
Speaker 1: banning of pornography. But as way Rich later recalled, I
Speaker 1: was trying to get these people interested in those issues
Speaker 1: and I utterly failed. So they're trying to like get
Speaker 1: the religious right on board with like banning the e
Speaker 1: r A, banning pornography, allowing schools to segregate, and like
Speaker 1: they really they can't get anybody on board. Nobody wants to,
Speaker 1: like anybody hype about these issues. People are like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: It was a different time. But abortion provided the Moral
Speaker 1: Majority with an easy cause to crusade against a banner
Speaker 1: other propagandized Christians could rally behind. Stop killing babies is
Speaker 1: an easier battle cry than keep black people out of
Speaker 1: our schools. So that is why they pick abortion as
Speaker 1: at least the public face of the movement, and this
Speaker 1: brings up the question, how did the Moral majority organize
Speaker 1: evangelicals against abortion if abortion hadn't been a big part
Speaker 1: of evangelical politics prayer to that point. The answer to this,
Speaker 1: as with so many great questions in American history, boils
Speaker 1: down to they hated women being free. Dum. Yeah. Of
Speaker 1: course that isn't a great vote getter either, So they
Speaker 1: framed their opposition to abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment
Speaker 1: as being pro family. There we go. That's how you
Speaker 1: get a fucking I'm gonna quote Doug Banmart again. Over
Speaker 1: the course of the nineteen seventies, ministers connected defense of
Speaker 1: the traditional family with opposition to abortion, feminism, and gay rights.
Speaker 1: Such rights, to those in the moral majority, attacked the
Speaker 1: tried and true social order that had persevered for generations.
Speaker 1: According to the Moral majority, who could possibly be anti family.
Speaker 1: In addition, it was this return to moral sanity that
Speaker 1: was trying to restore America from the upheaval of the
Speaker 1: recent past. Rather than speak out directly against gay's, feminists
Speaker 1: and abortionists, they often delivered the same message shrouded and
Speaker 1: pro family terms. For example, Moral Majority leaders defined traditional
Speaker 1: families as those with two heterosexual parents. This carried significant
Speaker 1: appeal among conservatives in the wake of the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: By framing the issue was defense of the family, the
Speaker 1: leaders of the Christian right effectively turned liberals into enemies
Speaker 1: of the family, at least in the eyes of millions
Speaker 1: of voters, and this is what led them to their
Speaker 1: violent opposition of the Equal Rights Amendment. This was the
Speaker 1: first test of the moral majority. Jerry Folwell Warren, the
Speaker 1: passage of the amendment could quote sanction homosexual marriage, send
Speaker 1: mothers and girls into combat, and generally injure the dignity
Speaker 1: of the traditional family. Gasp, yeah, you say, as you
Speaker 1: hug your traditional family member Anderson the dog. Now for reference,
Speaker 1: I think I should read out the main portions of
Speaker 1: the suggested amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment. That's very scary,
Speaker 1: family destroying amendment. Section one, A quality of rights under
Speaker 1: the law shall not be denied or abridged by the
Speaker 1: United States or by any State on account of sex.
Speaker 1: Section two, the Congress shall have the power to enforce,
Speaker 1: by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Section three.
Speaker 1: This Amendment shall take effect two years after the date
Speaker 1: of ratification, So that I mean that that likes the
Speaker 1: family right out. Yeah yeah, yeah, that that families should
Speaker 1: be destroyed. Amendment to the amendment was really extreme. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so obviously we couldn't have that happen. Fallwall and his
Speaker 1: fellow conservatives were terrified that the r A would lead
Speaker 1: to nightmares like government funded daycare and paternity leave. These
Speaker 1: are two things that they cited directly is why the
Speaker 1: r A was bad. It just seems like, how can
Speaker 1: you not feel like the biggest nerd when you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm anti porn, I'm anti like all the things you're
Speaker 1: anti makes you such a fucking nerd? Does that party
Speaker 1: not ever being like, dudes, we're doing the nerdiest shit
Speaker 1: out here. What are we doing? They're keeping women under
Speaker 1: lock and key, so crazy to me, Like it's like,
Speaker 1: if you're a reasonable person, being a post government funded
Speaker 1: daycare and paternity leave sounds like lunacy. But the fear
Speaker 1: among conservatives was that like, if there's government funded daycare,
Speaker 1: women can have jobs and then they weren't. Yeah, then
Speaker 1: they won't be like reliant on a man for everything.
Speaker 1: And if there's paternity leave, then dads could take care
Speaker 1: of kids too, and then moms could have careers and
Speaker 1: be independent people. Just defending gender roles is so nerdy too.
Speaker 1: It's another to be like, this is what I care about.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that the man does man
Speaker 1: things and the woman does woman things, and we've decided
Speaker 1: what those things are. Like, how do you even get
Speaker 1: how do you even get enough energy to care about that?
Speaker 1: It's the only thing you care about. If you're the
Speaker 1: kind of person who cares about that, It's just so
Speaker 1: crazy to me. I'm like, oh, live your life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the like, the core of this is a bunch
Speaker 1: of people who like can't fucking deal with other people
Speaker 1: wanting a different thing out of life than they do,
Speaker 1: which is really usually the core of like six of
Speaker 1: Bastardy speaking of a gigantic bastard Philish lifely a Christian
Speaker 1: activist and a gigantic piece of ship, wrote that the
Speaker 1: Equal Rights Amendment would be quote the first anti family
Speaker 1: amendment in the Constitution. It would protect biggmists, legalized prostitution,
Speaker 1: and defaying rape laws. The social and political goals of E. R.
Speaker 1: Rayer's a radical, irrational and unacceptable to Americans. In the
Speaker 1: essay where she wrote this, she leftly created the acronym
Speaker 1: stop e R A stop stood for stop taking our privileges.
Speaker 1: She made an acronym with the word that the acronym
Speaker 1: is in the agram. That's like saying the title of
Speaker 1: the movie in the movie, Yeah, we're wearing a band
Speaker 1: shirt to the concert. Like no, I just don't that.
Speaker 1: And so Jerry Fallwell and his comrades leapt into the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty election with the intent to restore their version
Speaker 1: of God to a position of primacy in American politics.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty, Folwell told his congregation, we're fighting a
Speaker 1: holy war. What's happened to America is that the wicked
Speaker 1: or bearing rule. We have to lead the nation back
Speaker 1: to the moral stance that made America great. We have
Speaker 1: to influence on those who govern us. Just trying to
Speaker 1: make America great. Everyone's having fun, fuck them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this does happen, And like, well, no, I guess nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty was. It was about to be a fun year.
Speaker 1: I mean, and people everywhere disco, Yeah, coming off of
Speaker 1: the fun ass rock and roll seventies. Yeah, people are
Speaker 1: just having a good time. Thery nerds are out here
Speaker 1: trying to ruin it for everything. It's that pendulum you have,
Speaker 1: like sexual liberation and like the civil rights movement and stuff,
Speaker 1: and then all of the assholes organized to like push
Speaker 1: the pendulum back. It's kind of like what's happening now,
Speaker 1: except it happened earlier. I know. It's just upsetting. It's like,
Speaker 1: let women work, they'll just buy stuff for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That women are so nice, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like like we're so nice. Yeah. You just you just
Speaker 1: want to participate in the flawless system of capitalism like
Speaker 1: everybody else. We just want to buy ship. We just
Speaker 1: want to buy ship. Weren't even allowed to have our
Speaker 1: own credit cards to like the seventies. Well that's a
Speaker 1: fair rule, because bitches be shopping. Am I right? Shopping?
Speaker 1: I That's going to be the core of my stand
Speaker 1: up act. I don't think anybody's joked about that before.
Speaker 1: It's gonna bring new grounds, So you should really talk
Speaker 1: about the differences between black people and white people. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do that when I get my new Netflix show canceled,
Speaker 1: really bold title, really gonna break new ground with that.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. Or something to do with safe Spaces.
Speaker 1: One of those two is going to be the title
Speaker 1: for sure. It will really be groundbreaking. Can't wait to
Speaker 1: open for you. I'm gonna get eight million dollars to
Speaker 1: complain about how I've been canceled by social justice warriors.
Speaker 1: Miles performs in Pennsylvania. He opens for Lucy k and
Speaker 1: as He's opens from Miles. Oh great, yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: how you want opening for you with the season. Sorry, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that's how Cansylvania works. I mean it is,
Speaker 1: that's literally how it works. Yeah. So Osby still performs
Speaker 1: on Cansylvania because it's Cansylvania. I mean he's huge there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just stumbling onto the stage, can't see anything because he
Speaker 1: I mean, he's crushing it or he's attempting to, but
Speaker 1: he's blind, so he can't make his way up on
Speaker 1: to the stage. Pennsylvania will cloud for that. So uh.
Speaker 1: When Jerry Fallwell spoke, millions of people listened. At the
Speaker 1: start of the nineteen eighties, his TV show was hosted
Speaker 1: on three and seventy three stations, more than Johnny Carson's
Speaker 1: Tonight Show. His church, the Thomas Road Baptist Church, had
Speaker 1: grown to become one of the very first megachurches with
Speaker 1: regular attendants of more than seventeen thousand. But the true
Speaker 1: genius of Jerry Fallwell and guiding the Moral Majority was
Speaker 1: his ability to unify different types of Christians together. Catholics
Speaker 1: and Protestants did not traditionally see one another as groups
Speaker 1: with much in common. They regularly found themselves in opposition. Likewise,
Speaker 1: mainstream Protestants, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, and Fundamentalists were all distinct groups
Speaker 1: of Christians, and they had no real history of organizing
Speaker 1: together towards a common purpose. Fallwell succeeded in welding them
Speaker 1: together for the first time. He was criticized by the
Speaker 1: president of Bob Jones University for creating an unholy alliance
Speaker 1: with the evil Catholics. It's weird to relieve, like that's
Speaker 1: where a religion used to be in America, where somebody
Speaker 1: was like, I wanna get all the Christians together to
Speaker 1: stop people from letting women work, and someone's like, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna work with the Catholics to do that. It's hilarious,
Speaker 1: good nuts. So uh, fall will reply to that. I'm
Speaker 1: indeed considered to be dangerous to liberals, feminists, abortionists, and homosexuals,
Speaker 1: but not to Bible believe in Christians, this time preaching
Speaker 1: would not be enough. It is my duty as a
Speaker 1: Christian to apply the truths of Scripture to every act
Speaker 1: of government. Yeah, no, I asked you. Yeah, damn, why
Speaker 1: are you volunteering for a job that, Liz literally does
Speaker 1: not exist. You just appointed yourself when we started pastoring
Speaker 1: on a huge as level. Yeah, he's like, well, this
Speaker 1: is what I do now. No one fucking asked you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this has worked in Virginia, so clearly the entire
Speaker 1: country should have to have me as their pastor. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that. Like this is the like we have
Speaker 1: to apply. It's my duty to apply the truths of
Speaker 1: Scripture to every act of government. It's like, no, dude,
Speaker 1: Like when we started this whole country thing, like the
Speaker 1: whole idea was that, like that's not how we're gonna
Speaker 1: do it. We're not going to have religion be involved
Speaker 1: in politics. No, bitch, your duty is to like groom yourself,
Speaker 1: go it out into the world and be someone that
Speaker 1: improves it. And that's literally it. Yeah, just that's it.
Speaker 1: Stay away from everybody, pay taxes, and don't assault people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really the only goals. We want you to work,
Speaker 1: we ask of anyone, That's all we wanted. Don't fucking
Speaker 1: feed people their cats and ship like that. That's I mean?
Speaker 1: Is that a too too big an ask? Was too
Speaker 1: big of an ask for his dad? Big cat feeder,
Speaker 1: two people guy? Yeah. So. Jerry Fallwell's chief innovation, the
Speaker 1: one which is shaped American politics ever since, was to
Speaker 1: convince all Christian conservatives that they're really on the same side.
Speaker 1: Fighting for the sanctity of the family, abortion, opposition to
Speaker 1: gay rights, advocating for the return of prayer in school.
Speaker 1: All these things can be bundled together as saving the family.
Speaker 1: Fall All wrote, the family is the fundamental building block
Speaker 1: and basic unit of our society, and its continued health
Speaker 1: is a prerequisite for a healthy and prosperous nation. No
Speaker 1: nation has ever been stronger than the families within her.
Speaker 1: And so the moral majority set to work. They start, honestly,
Speaker 1: just reconnect with your own dad. You know that sounds
Speaker 1: like a personal situation. No, I mean, like whatever you
Speaker 1: need to do say once, like write him a letter,
Speaker 1: then burn it whatever. It sounds like you have a
Speaker 1: lot of personal Yeah, in his memory, shoot at someone's feet.
Speaker 1: But Honestly, it just sounds like you need to work
Speaker 1: out your fucking daddy issues instead of trying to daddy
Speaker 1: the whole fucking country. I think that really is the
Speaker 1: core of a lot of this. His dad was a
Speaker 1: piece of ship, Yeah, and he's trying to make up
Speaker 1: for it. Solved next case, the Moral Majority set to
Speaker 1: work preparing morality ratings for every member of Congress. See
Speaker 1: that's not terrifying. I love to be rated. Everybody does.
Speaker 1: It's like Airbnb, but for Congress. Uh. They founded documentaries
Speaker 1: attacking homosexuals as degenerates, int haring abortion as murder, and
Speaker 1: they launched a national voter registration drive aimed at Americans
Speaker 1: concerned with family values issues. From ban words article, Moral
Speaker 1: Majorities spring into action, mobilizing politicians and religious leaders to
Speaker 1: help support their platform. The movement boasted a wide variety
Speaker 1: of accomplishments and energy to influence the election. We're going
Speaker 1: to change the country Utah Senator or in hatch declare
Speaker 1: and or in a hatch. The Moral Majority boasted a
Speaker 1: political war chest worth millions of dollars. By the summer
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty, It opened offices in Washington, D C.
Speaker 1: And in just one year gave eighty three thousand new
Speaker 1: addresses for its mailing list. It's like the Black Set
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, Fallwell said, and this time we're
Speaker 1: going to win. Oh my god. Roughly three months before
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty election, the Moral Majority officially announced its
Speaker 1: support of Ronald Wilson. Yeah, surprise, surprise. And that is
Speaker 1: where we're gonna leave off for the episode. In part two,
Speaker 1: we're going to learn about Jerry Folwell's reaction to the
Speaker 1: AIDS crisis, the Moral Majority under Reagan, and just a
Speaker 1: little that about how a certain conservative fire brand reacted
Speaker 1: to nine eleven. And we're gonna talk about Larry Flint,
Speaker 1: who's going to be the hero of the next episode.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, hell yeah. But first, Sophia, you have a podcast.
Speaker 1: It's right. I have a podcast called Private Parts and
Speaker 1: Round Parts Unknown. I co host it with Courtney Kossak
Speaker 1: and uh it's a podcast about love and sexuality around
Speaker 1: the world and it's really fun. And soon my podcast
Speaker 1: with Miles Gray called is coming out, so watch out
Speaker 1: for that. I'm going to issue a challenge to the
Speaker 1: listeners of both of our podcasts. If you're a fan
Speaker 1: of Bastard's pod and Private Parts Unknown because your podcast
Speaker 1: is essentially the oral opposite of Jerry Fallwell, like condensed
Speaker 1: into sound waves. Yes, so if you, if you live
Speaker 1: near Virginia where he's buried, fans of the show, get
Speaker 1: some speakers. Oh my god, which episode would you want
Speaker 1: blasted into Jerry Fallwell's corpse um and talking about their
Speaker 1: experiences with abortion? Nailing it? Oh? Yeah, yeah, play that
Speaker 1: one directly into Jerry Fallwell's grave. You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: go to the Liberty University campus to do it, and
Speaker 1: they will kick you out. But but please get that
Speaker 1: video ship. That would really make my life. Actually, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that there will that You will be beloved by all
Speaker 1: of us if you if you succeed in beaming an
Speaker 1: episode of Private Parts Unknown into Jerry Fallwell's yeah into
Speaker 1: his ghost yeah body, which is now in the most
Speaker 1: subterranean levels of Cansylvania. Yeah, I think that will destroy
Speaker 1: his ghost. Wow, that's not That's the only way you
Speaker 1: can get rid of gusts. The only way you can
Speaker 1: get rid of a ghosts You find their their their opposite,
Speaker 1: condense it into sound waves and then blasted into their
Speaker 1: corpse it's like a silver bullet for vampires. It's like
Speaker 1: a silver bullet for vampires, but for ghosts truth and
Speaker 1: you can just download it on your phone using Spotify.
Speaker 1: Now you want to plug your social meds. So when
Speaker 1: fans beam their music into Jerry Fallwells Court or your
Speaker 1: podcast into Jerry Fallwell's corpse, uh, they can let you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah please? I am the Sophie on Twitter and instagram s,
Speaker 1: so f I y a ulcer spoilers, he's dead. I
Speaker 1: just realized we hadn't gotten there. I think people know
Speaker 1: he's dead, but I really appreciate the spoiler alert. It's
Speaker 1: the episode I website Behind the Bastards dot com t shirts,
Speaker 1: t public other podcast Worst Year Ever, Binding the Bastards,
Speaker 1: Bastard pot at on Twitter, Instagram, episode done