It's probably worth noting here that Jerry Falwell had transitioned from a prior moral position —the importance of keeping black and white people separate in society and especially in church and school.

Falwell was clever. He read the tea leaves much more effectively than Bob Jones, whose Evangelical university fought for religiously based racist segregation until almost the very end of the 20th century.

By the time Falwell helped found the Moral Majority, he realized racism was a losing issue. He changed his Biblical tune on his radio show, ending his calls for segregation and the criminalizing of marriage between members of different races.

But that left him at loose ends. Without a charged moral issue to outrage his listeners with, he knew he had to replace his message with something equally as engaging.

Along came abortion and gay rights. He effectively switched to highlighting those topics, and his popularity soared again.

I know some of this from reading, and I know other bits from conversations with my father at the time and over the years. Dad was a Baptist preacher in Falwell's orbit, and our family spent some time with the Falwells in Lynchburg when I was a child.

I was personally witness to the Evangelical movements in the US South switching from racism to anti-queer, anti-woman emphases.