Moral Majority
The
Moral Majority movement was an organization made up of
conservative Christian political action groups, which campaigned on issues it believed central to upholding its
Christian conception of the moral law, a perception it believed represented the majority of people's opinions, hence the movement's name. The organization officially dissolved in 1989 but lives on in the Christian Coalition network initiated by
Pat Robertson. With a membership of millions the
Moral Majority was one of the largest conservative lobby groups in the
United States. Among issues it campaigned on were:
The
Moral Majority had adherents in the two major United States political parties, the
Republicans and the
Democrats, though it exercised more influence on the former than the latter.
Though it claimed to represent the views of the majority of citizens, opinion polls as well as election and referendum outcomes suggest that it was less representative of public opinion than its name suggests. This, combined with what some saw as discrimination and elitism, led a humorist to remark, "The Moral Majority is neither moral nor a majority." The phrase has been repeated to the point where the original attribution is lost to history.
Compare with Moralism
People: