Moral Majority Founded - Corporate Agenda Masked by Religious Cultural Warfare

In June 1979, Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority during a meeting at a Holiday Inn in Lynchburg, Virginia, with Weyrich coining the term “moral majority.” The organization represented a strategic alliance between corporate interests and religious conservatives, using cultural issues to mobilize voters for an economic agenda that primarily benefited wealthy elites.

The founding involved an elite group of strategists: Richard Viguerie (direct mail fundraising), Howard Phillips (political strategy), Paul Weyrich (Heritage Foundation co-founder), Robert Billings (former White House liaison), and Ed McAteer (Religious Roundtable founder and Colgate-Palmolive sales executive). Startup funding came from the Coors family, while Viguerie used old Goldwater campaign mailing lists to launch massive fundraising operations.

The Moral Majority activated Christians around issues like abortion, prayer in schools, sex education, and “traditional family values” - but notably, these cultural issues were not the original motivation. Ed Dobson, Jerry Falwell’s former lieutenant, later stated: “The Religious New Right did not start because of a concern about abortion. I sat in the non-smoke-filled back room with the Moral Majority, and I frankly do not remember abortion being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something.”

The organization’s real purpose was mobilizing religious voters to support corporate tax cuts, deregulation, and anti-labor policies by wrapping these economic priorities in cultural and moral language. This strategy proved highly effective, creating a reliable voting bloc that supported policies benefiting corporate donors while believing they were voting for religious values.

The Moral Majority demonstrated how corporate-funded political infrastructure could use cultural warfare to obscure economic class interests, turning working-class religious voters into supporters of wealthy elites’ economic agenda. This model would be replicated and expanded for decades, with cultural issues serving as cover for systematic wealth transfer from poor and middle-class Americans to corporate interests.