Movements to Rackets: The Falwells Rise and Fall

Eric Hoffer, in his book The Temper of Our Time, wrote “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

Hoffer’s quote is first on the screen of the movie “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty” available on HULU. The documentary tells the story of Jerry Falwell Jr., his wife Becki and Miami pool boy Giancario Granda. To make a long story short, Jerry’s in the corner watching Becki and the pool boy, doing, you know. And, it went on for seven years, eventually involving Trump attorney Michael Cohen, the Donald, and actor Tom Arnold.   It’s a story that has everything: real estate, religion, sex, politics, higher education. Great viewing for the holidays. 

Murray Rothbard, in a memo to F.A. Harper and George Resch about the libertarian movement and in particular the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and its founder Leonard Read used similar words….”the tendency for the fellow who can obtain money to be in control of policy, and the corollary tendency to begin to trim the output of the organization to what will attract the money. When the latter happens, the gathering of money begins to become the end, not the means, and the organization begins to take on the dimension of a ‘racket.’”

Murray’s memo inspired a piece called “Movements Becoming Rackets,” which expanded into a speech at the Property and Freedom Society salon  “How Movements are Turned into Rackets,” reprinted on Sean Ring’s The Rude Awakening. 

The common thread of the four stories, three from the speech plus the Falwells, is as the movement becomes a racket each and every time power turns to money turns to sexual exploits. Southern Law Poverty Law Center founder Morris Dees had an eye for his young staff. Hillsdale College’s George Roche had a long-running affair with his daughter-in-law. FEE’s Leonard Read has been called the “Wilt Chamberlain of the Liberty movement.” 

The Falwells take the sexcapades to a whole new level. While the other non-profit Alpha males did their own bedding, Jerry couldn’t keep up with his wife and stood not-so-idly by while Mr. Granda and Becki did their business.  

Jerry Jr. was more a businessman than his father Jerry who founded the Moral Majority. The Wall Street Journal explains Jerry Sr.’s move into politics in its review of “God Forbid.”

What got the elder Falwell involved in politics is perhaps the most intriguing part of the tale, aside from the hotel shenanigans: When, in the late ’50s, racial integration was imposed on Southern schools, churches started their own. But when the IRS threatened to remove the tax exemptions of those still-segregated schools, Falwell decided that he and people like him needed friends in high places—i.e., Washington. His “Old-Time Gospel Hour” was devoted to promoting what are usually referred to as family values, though it was an evolving agenda: As recalled by Anthea Butler, chair of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Falwell Sr. didn’t preach his first anti-abortion sermon until five years after Roe v. Wade. But, by then, abortion had been agitated into a useful political issue.

Of course the hypocrisy of the Falwells is extraordinary. Booze, sex and even provocative dress are banned at Liberty University. Jerry Jr. was let go from the university and lawsuits between him and Liberty are ongoing. He doesn’t deny his wife’s affair with the young pool boy turned real estate operator. He continues to deny that he watched. 

Lynchburg, Virginia, once a mandatory stop for Republican candidates, will not be a required stop for Republicans on the campaign trail in 2024.