Challenges To The Moral Majority
By the late 1980s the views of the Moral Majority were challenged widely and the organization started to crumble. With its waning support, critics started to call the organization "neither moral nor a majority". By 1988 there were serious cash flow problems and Falwell dismantled the organization in 1989.
During its existence the Moral Majority experienced friction with other evangelical leaders and organizations as well as liberal leaders and organizations. For example, Bob Jones particularly sought to challenge the public position of the Moral Majority and was known to make public statements that the Moral Majority was an instrument of Satan. Such rivalries affected the Moral Majority’s grassroots efforts. In South Carolina, the Moral Majority had no presence because Bob Jones University’s religious network had already organized the state’s independent Baptists. The tension between Falwell and Pat Robertson also affected the Moral Majority, as noted in the presidential elections section of this article. On the ideologically opposed side, Norman Lear’s liberal organization People for the American Way was formed with the specific intention of opposing the platforms of the Moral Majority and other Christian Right organizations.
Read more about this topic: Moral Majority
Famous quotes containing the words challenges, moral and/or majority:
“The approval of the public is to be avoided like the plague. It is absolutely essential to keep the public from entering if one wishes to avoid confusion. I must add that the public must be kept panting in expectation at the gate by a system of challenges and provocations.”
—André Breton (1896–1966)
“When our kids are young, many of us rush out to buy a cute little baby book to record the meaningful events of our young child’s life...But I’ve often thought there should be a second book, one with room to record the moral milestones of our child’s lives. There might be space to record dates she first shared or showed compassion or befriended a new student or thought of sending Grandma a get-well card or told the truth despite its cost.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)
“In our governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of government contrary to the sense of the constituents, but from the acts in which government is the mere instrument of the majority.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)