Moral Majority

===Social agenda===

The Moral Majority successfully campaigned to create an integrated social platform that appealed to most conservative Christians by packaging a variety of previously disparate issues under the banner of "traditional [[family values]]".<ref name="Fetner, Tina p. 58">Fetner, Tina. How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and Gay Activism, p. 58. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8166-4918-1}}.</ref> The Moral Majority portrayed issues such as abortion, divorce, feminism, gay and lesbian rights, and the [[Equal Rights Amendment]] as attacks on the traditional concept and values of American families and tapped into a sense of societal moral decay that resonated with many [[evangelicals]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Banwart |first=Doug |title=Jerry Falwell, the Rise of the Moral Majority, and the 1980 Election |journal=Western Illinois Historical Review |volume=5 |pages=133–57 |date=2013 |url=http://www.wiu.edu/cas/history/wihr/pdfs/Banwart-MoralMajorityVol5.pdf  |access-date=2019-12-10}}</ref> They also campaigned for the inclusion of prayer in schools and tax incentives for married couples as protection for the traditional family structure. Under this pro-family agenda, they mobilized a large base of supporters with issue-centric dialogue that they proliferated in their network of preachers and mailings.<ref name="Fetner, Tina p. 58"/>

====Gay rights issues==== 
In particular, the anti-homosexual rhetoric that they publicized through fund-raising letters and [[Christian broadcasting]] had higher contribution rates than other topics. While not explicitly anti-gay in their public platforms during the 1970s, their internal mobilization as "shared anti-gay sentiment aided in solidifying a collective set of grievances and ideologies, in establishing a collective identity of constituents, and in constructing a hostile enemy against which the conservative Christian activists were to fight".<ref>Fetner, Tina. How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and Gay Activism, p. 60. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8166-4918-1}}.</ref> The Moral Majority refrained from directly speaking out against gays, feminists, and pro-abortion parties and instead used "pro-family" rhetoric to articulate their point. For example, instead of coming out directly against homosexuality and gay families, leaders of the Moral Majority defined a family as "two heterosexual parents" which appealed to many conservatives. <ref name="banwart-moral">{{cite journal |last1=Banwart |first1=Doug |title=Jerry Falwell, the Rise of the 'Moral Majority', and the 1980 Election |journal=Western Illinois Historical Review |date=Spring 2013 |volume=5 |pages=133–157 |url=https://brewminate.com/jerry-falwell-the-rise-of-the-moral-majority-and-the-1980-election/ |access-date=18 February 2024}}</ref>

Later, as the organization gained more influence in the 1980s, their rhetoric became more explicit in their stance on [[gay rights]] as they characterized the movement as an attack on the American family. [[Jerry Falwell Sr.]] expressed that because gay people were [[Social exclusion|rejected by most of society]], they had no choice but to prey on the young and were therefore a threat to children and families. Various Moral Majority members also expressed more extreme opinions, such as Moral Majority commentator Charlie Judd, who argued that "There are absolutes in this world. Just as jumping off a building will kill a person, so will the spread of homosexuality bring about the demise of American culture as we know it".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Banwart |first=Doug |title=Jerry Falwell, the Rise of the Moral Majority, and the 1980 Election |journal=Western Illinois Historical Review |volume=5 |pages=133–57 |date=2013 |url=http://www.wiu.edu/cas/history/wihr/pdfs/Banwart-MoralMajorityVol5.pdf  |access-date=2019-12-10}}</ref>