The Moral Majority and Fandom

Synonyms:
See also:	Fandom Police, Puriteen, Callout Culture, Social Justice, Anti-Shipper, Warnings, Labels, Purity Culture in Fandom, Fandom purity wank, anti, Anti-Shipper: Current Use
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Moral Majority was an American right wing evangelical Christian political and social movement.

Formally founded in 1979, it had its origins in 1976 when Baptist minister Jerry Falwell Sr. began a series of "I Love America" rallies across the country to raise awareness of social issues important to him, things that he felt were adding to the moral decay of the United States and the world. It was disbanded as an organization in 1989, but its footprint and influences are still prevalent today.

From a 1985 ad for newsletter:

Vampire Quarterly is a quarterly "newsletter/information zine covering vampires, werewolves, ghouls, ghasts, Jerry Falwell, and other monsters.

Similar Groups

• Warriors for Innocence

Moral Majority: Both an Official Group and a Reference to Right Wing Conservative Christian Control in General

The use of the term "moral majority" was used by many, including fans, as a all-encompassing catchword for a group of people who want to enforce conservative religious beliefs on everyone. This means while the similar proselytizing by Anita Bryant and Phyllis Schlafly in the late 1970s isn't formally connected, they are certainly part of the context; fans often made reference to both women (as well as Falwell) and conflated their similar agendas as they discussed fanworks and navigated their anti-gay, anti-feminist and other controlling statements and actions.

While the original "Moral Majority" no longer exists, the term is still used as a catch-all. One example from a fan in 2009:

Not being able to even discuss RPF in one of the biggest X-Files communities online seems like Moral Majority overkill to me. Apparently for the person(s) running Haven, the judgment has already been handed down, and we RPF writers and readers have been found lacking.

From another 2009 comment:

With all the positivity and love surrounding the Otalians, we are still anxiously heedful of the inevitable attacks from the less-tolerant end of Right Wing Nutjobbery. By virtue of the quiet build of this story, and the lack of overt, self-serving hype, this story has mostly flown under the radar of the invasive and mean "moral majority" types. It is unavoidable though; they have their tentacles out looking for any excuse to attack. And despite the intentional "label-free" nature of Otalia, in their world there is no other way to interpret this story other than "queer". The attacks will come, and they won't be nice.

Fandom, Political Climate, and The Moral Majority

Anita Bryant as on a rampage, as satirically portrayed in Pop Stand Express #10, artist Dar F. "I came all the way across this great country of ours to speak to you about this appalling 'Blue Video' section that stands like a blemish on the wholesome face of Pop Stand. Slash is a communist plot to destroy our heroes! And I'm here to whip this section into shape... oops, pardon me, but my leather undies are creeping up again..."

The early 1980s in the United States were rife with political and social turmoil and the Moral Majority and its tenets were prevalent in fandom, a reflection of the larger world.

Modern readers should keep in mind that in the late 1970s, the anti-porn, anti-slash view in Star Trek fandom reflected that of most people in mainstream American culture. Homosexuality was viewed as a pathology, associated with child molestation. In psychiatry being gay was a mental illness with a specific diagnostic code. In the wake of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, heterosexual pornography was becoming tolerated, but literature and film describing homosexual relations, even if not explicit, was considered to be pornographic and indecent by the general public. It was illegal to send such works -- fanzines included -- through the U.S. Mail. In many states, including Michigan, sodomy laws prohibiting homosexual acts were still in place, although several gay politicians had been elected to city councils in Ann Arbor and East Lansing. The passing of a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida that year had sparked a nationwide anti-gay backlash led by conservative gadfly Anita Bryant.

LucasFilm had hopped into the fray with Open Letter to Star Wars Zine Publishers by Maureen Garrett in the summer/fall of 1981, an event that had a cooling effect on sex, explicit and otherwise, in fannish works. Two examples of these fanworks were the 1981 slash zine, Code 7, an underground zine published with all of the authors' removed, and Pushin' the Odds, a 1983 zine came that with a sheet of red plastic the reader was to put over the page to make it legible. The editor of "Pushin' the Odds" also required a signed "statement of compliance," numbered the copies, and used coded hole-punches on the pages, supposedly to identify the purchaser of any copy that "fell into unauthorized hands.

The 1985 The Great Australian 1985 Radio Show Fiasco generated a 1987 comment from, Dovya Blacque, one of the slash writers mentioned in that fannish reveal:

I'm far from ashamed of K/S or of writing or reading it. But we all have to live 
in the real world and facts is facts. Writing K/S and having it known by people at 
Paramount or by the actors or by some radically 'moral' minority can be very detri
mental to one's career...to say nothing of one's life. And since quite a few of us have illusions of writing more than fan stories some day.... Well, enough said about 
the merits of pen names.

In 1990, Beauty and the Beast (TV) fans had to contend with the Family Channel and its dictates concerning airing any hint of Vincent Wells and Catherine Chandler kissing each other on the mouth, and worse -- the presence of a baby without the depiction of a wedding. In November 1990, a fan, Beth Blighton, wrote a long letter to the letterzine, Once Upon a Time... Is Now #27, encouraging fans to resist censorship in all forms in the broader world and included comments about "The Family Channel's" involvement with Reverend Wildmon. Throughout the late 1970s, Wildmon, a conservative Christian, actively protested television series that he thought promoted immoral lifestyles. Beauty and the Beast fans were specifically affected by Wildmon's crusade as he was a "consultant" on "The Family Channel's" handling of the series.

Context and Precursor to "Anti"

[2016]: ... why AO3 has no morality content in their terms of service. You can’t break copyright beyond fair use (and AO3 has an expansive view of “fair use” and a team of lawyers on call). You can’t use AO3 for commercial advertising. And you can’t post ACTUAL child pornography, i.e. the things that are legally prohibited, i.e. actual photographs or videos of actual children (not teens) in sexually explicit positions–you know, the stuff that actually hurts kids. Other than that? It’s fair game. You can post anything you want, and the archive will not judge. There is no handle for the Moral Majority Family-Friendly Thought Police to latch onto, no cracks they can exploit to divide and conquer. We’ve been down that road. It doesn’t lead anywhere good.

[2017]: Antis, to set themselves as the moral majority will pick a character they think is being sidelined and use the accusation of racism to get people to like him more - that they are better people because he is their fave

Fanworks Directly Inspired by The Moral Majority

Fiction

"For Anita Bryant Fans," a vignette from 1978, Obsc'zine #3, reprinted in Relay #1 in 1980

• Forbidden Fruit by C.C. Cain (A story so crude that even Anita Bryant-haters felt it went too far.) (1978)
• Showfolk by Karen Mercer, a Professionals story in Fantazine #6 ("It's the Twenty-third Century. Earth has colonised a hundred light years of the galaxy, and far, far across the stars ... one still can't escape The Moral Majority! Driven out of the homeworlds, the MM'ers have taken their message of 'a return to family values' to the colonies, and they still can't win an election on fairly. Rival candidates keep getting assassinated, and in every colony where it happens, the starship Troubadour is found. It's crew is a very bad touring theatre company, regularly rubbished by the critics... and a misfit. An ex-Imperial Marine named Bodie. The ship arrives on Borax is during an election campaign and ex-Sergeant Bodie is in big trouble. He's the prime suspect of the Imperial! But he's in luck...the officer in charge of the local ISC is an old friend, one Raymond Doyle. Science Fiction merges with hilarious comedy.") (1995)

• For Anita Bryant Fans, or, Kirk and Spock Get Theirs by Jo (in Obsc'zine #3 in 1978, reprinted in Relay #1 in 1980)

Essays

• The K/S Concept: A Feminist Perspective -- A Personal Statement by Judith Gran (1981)

Fan Comments

Clipper Trade Ship #31 (1981)

Jundland Wastes 5/6 (1981)

1977

As I said, no one else, including the editor, does. But freedom of expression for one is freedom of expression for all. Otherwise it is not freedom at all, but the familiar tyranny by one group or groups over others. Expressed either verbally or non-verbally as, "We will expound our views and proselytize you, but you will not be allowed to do the same because we have determined that our way is the only way or at least the best way, for you as well as us, and we, after all, have greater numbers than you, and we we have the weapons of enforcement to shut you up!"

Such a mind-set hardly jells with the ideals promoted by Star Trek, and if such is your mind set, then I don't know what you're doing with this zine in the first place, and what could possibly interest you in ST in the second. The Anita Bryant's of the world contribute nothing to human/human understanding.

Just imagine what an 'asset' they'd be if we ever do encounter a truly alien species.

[I will not attend the Florida World Science Fiction Convention, that as] much I would like to visit Disneyland... as much as I desire the tax write-off of convention expenses for a professional doing business, I must regretfully state that my principles will not allow me to spend a single tourist dollar... in a state which has chosen to vote in support of Anita Bryant's anti-feminist, anti-ERA, anti-gay-rights movement.

1978

... the pervasive hostility towards the professed Christians in fandom. I do not understand why it is all right -- and even admired — to be a strict orthodox Jew or a practicing Buddhist, but the heinous crime against humanity — not to mention random — to be a practicing Christian. I've heard people accusing so-and-so of entering fandom simply to make converts, evangelize, etc., as if it is impossible to be an ST fan for the same reason everyone else is if you are a Christian. And there is, of course, the stereotyping you mention: say the word "Christian" and ninety percent of fandom thinks immediately of Anita Bryant. (I think, personally, that in some ways she may have done her own cause more harm than good, as whatever her intentions may have been, her message comes across as a message of hate toward a particular group of people; there is an old saying that Bryant unfortunately does not heed: "Hate the sin but love the sinner.")

On the red-hot subject of homosexuality in ST: I'm not a rabid Anita Bryant supporter. Neither am I a flag-waver for the Gay Liberationists' Movement. I simply accept the fact that there are people who are homosexuals, and there are people who are heterosexuals. Period. But, I do not consider Kirk and Spock to be homosexuals. I draw my own conclusions from the best possible source: aired STAR TREK. Kirk is heterosexual, Spock is the closest thing to a neuter that I can think of.

I would not want the freedom of speech or the written word taken from any person. Nor do I intend to set myself up as the Anita Bryant of fandom. The issue of whether homosexuality is right or wrong is a judgment that God, and God alone will decide.

1980

I'd like to call to your attention to a dangerous new trend afoot (and if perhaps start a new debate) — that of the 'Moral Majority', a group of religious zealots and TV evangelists who have begun to use political pressure and economic sanctions to eliminate 'dangerous' ideas. Their planned media clean-up campaign won't endanger such pablum as "That's Incredible" — but will probably hinder future creative efforts in televised SF. The question for debate is: do such groups have a constitutional right to force their views upon the majority of the population? How do you combat intolerance and reason when no one cares?

... we don't value female friendship because our culture teaches us to devalue everything women have (except physical items depersonalized into icons). Pop culture merely reflects this. There are plenty of idealized male-male friendships on TV, but what female-female friendships do we see? Laverne and Shirley, some ideal!

But I think there's also a darker reason: A deliberate policy of Divide and Conquer. Sexist men have good reason to fear female friendship; it can lead to massive unity which could destroy their power. Therefore, ruling males (and their dutiful female mouthpieces) deliberately discourage female unity, even to denigrating female-female friendship.

Supporting evidence? Easy. When any ruling group feels threatened by an uprising of its victims, guilty fear brings some amazing paranoia to its arguments: California undertakers respond to "The American Way of Death" by calling the author a Communist; when Civil Rights began gaining power, white bigot claimed Blacks really wanted to rape white women; the conservative churchs' mouthpiece, Anita Bryant, responds to Gay Lib by insisting that gays only want to rape straight children. With ERA pending, some current film, and pop-novels and patriarchal mouthpieces such as Phyllis Schafly and Mary Lou Dodge, claim that feminists are really man-haters who only want to cut up men. Note the similarities!

1981

I guess what I'm saying is, while we explore new worlds, we must keep our minds and hearts open, to others with other ideas, or even those (and they exist) who are just discovering STAR TREK, and feel what we did 5 or 10 or 15 years ago. An open mind goes beyond fandom, or course. The world seems to be suffering from a singular lack of open minds. Single issue political groups, left and right, are a classic example. Both the Moral Majority and No-Nuke demonstrators are equally guilty, seeing only what they choose to through glasses colored not by roses, but by preconceptions.

Because K/S and feminism share the same goals, they tend to share the same adversaries. Within fandom, it isn't surprising that the most vociferously anti-K/S fen are also the most vociferous anti- feminist. Of course, this simply mirrors a familiar pattern in the mundane world: there is much affinity between the supporters of Anita Bryant and those of Phyllis Schlafley. The Moral Majority is both anti-gay and anti-feminist.

Sunday's highlight [of Denvention]: — I think that's what it should be called, if only out of the true charitableness of my heart — was the meeting between the editors of Star Wars zines (We did The Lighter Side of the Force, and will be doing The Lighter Side Strikes Back... Real Soon Now) and Maureen Garrett, representing Lucasfilms. It was truly... an experience. Maureen seems like a fairly nice person caught between her personal opinions and the ones she is being paid to promote. The meeting was called to discuss the recent appearance of *GASP* Pornographic Star Wars stories! It seems Lucasfilms fears some member of the Moral Majority will leaf through an x-rated zine their kid picked up at a con, decide the entire SWars Saga and all folk involved therein are in league with the devil, and call up the National Enquirer posthaste, all to the detriment of the pure and wholesome reputation Star Wars now enjoys.

The meeting did not result in bloodshed, or even unnecessary harshness from either side. Unfortunately, neither did it result in any clear cut resolution, at least at that time. The editors were given no useful guidelines (though I hear some are at last being drawn up) on what was OK/Not OK. For instance, we learned that a cartoon showing two Imperial walkers mating like dogs was acceptable, but a story scene with Han tonguing Leia's nipple was not. All things considered, I'm really glad I'm not interested in writing adult material in the SWars universe, because it sounds like endless heartaches.

Wonderful! I must admit, though, that I initially approached this story with a great deal of trepidation. I am not specially fond of "get Luke/Han stories with some sex thrown in." (No, I am not jumping on [George] Lucas' moral majority bandwagon! I just happen to feel that unless it's done right...) I sometimes feel as if [sex] is all that some folks have to write about.

"In Whose Back Yard?" by Judith Gran is an analysis of a serious and important subject: the legality of fanzines (copyright, law, the fair use doctrine, trademarks, and so forth). With the STAR WARS "Moral Majority" hot-on-the-heels and on the lookout for "adult" fan fiction, this article is a prime subject for their recriminations. After all, it provides useful, factual information which discusses what one can and cannot do in the realm of fan fiction, realistically rather than in wishful thinking.

1982

More adult themes appeared, and their acceptance caused the hard-line conservatives to withdraw from active zinedom. Even fandom, it seems, has a "Moral Majority."

I want fandom to continue so that I can still be having fun when I'm 80. I'm a lousy correspondent, but it's not because I don't care. It's because I'm lazy. I'd rather read than do anything else in the world -- that includes eating, sex, sleeping, or anything else I can think of. Including answering letters.... I'm open-minded and I like other people who are also. I detest the Moral Majority or anyone else who tries to tell me what I should read, write, or watch.

I find myself in a bit of a dilemma. I have read S/H and just don’t like it – not because it offends my moral beliefs, but just because I don’t care for it – sort of how I don’t like certain types of stories with certain settings or plots. Now, I also find the whole concept of the Moral Majority and people like Jerry Falwell to be self-serving, opportunistic and dangerously manipulative – in short – contemptible. So, where do I stand in the current squabble that is going on in fandom? I can’t be placed in either group – those championing for freedom of speech and expressiveness or those standing up for restrictions and moral uprightness.

1983

The "anti-God bias" in fan writing (I think it's more accurately described as an anti-Christian bias) is probably backlash hostility from people who confuse the lunatic-fringe Moral Majority with true Christianity. (D. Booker's letter, I#63, is a good example of this confusion.) There has been a lot of backlash in the last few years because of the Jerry Falwells, the modern-day "scribes and Pharisees." What you've observed in fandom is just a microcosm of this.

1984

If you're collecting stories about embarrassing moments caused by K/S zines, I left one behind by mistake in the employee lunchroom -- an really graphic one, too, illos by [Gayle F]. I imagine it's still sitting in the lost and found box in the office of the Publisher's secretary; since he is a real homophobic, Bible-thumping Moral Majority type AND my boss, I decided that $15 for a replacement copy would be cheap compared to looking for a new job.

Well, everyone's entitled to his/her own stupid opinion, a friend of mine once told me, so I tried to remain calm when reading DG's bit [in The World of Star Trek ] on K/S fans and their 'mimeographed' zines, their 'unwelcome invasion' into fandom, and how we corrupt poor young fen who wander unexpectedly into cons where K/S material is sold. The parents of such fen, DG tells us, are so horrified by the material, that they drag PYF home. Well, being a mother - and you can take that any way you like - I thought to myself, "What if all the PYFs' moms & pops aren't so horrified by K/S? What if they had less narrow minds than DG? Is it possible that there are some parents out there who accept K/S as an alternative universe in fandom - and who don't rush home with poor little YF in tow to their Bibles and Jerry Falwell show at the mere mention of it?" And, would DG's "horrified parents" be just as upset by their PYF being exposed to heterosexual adult material featuring "our boys"? Well, anyhow, thoroughly disgusted by what I was reading, I thought to myself, "This shmuck's not gonna get my $9.00!"

1985

I have the opinion that there may be a form of prejudice against any Christian interpretation of SW. I have the feeling that since the Moral Majority has raised its ultra-conservative head, there is a knee-jerk reaction anytime anything Christian is brought up.

1986

Is there any evidence that the so-called Moral Majority care about K/S -- or ST -- one way or the other? In the early days of K/S fandom, we had our own "moral majority" in ST fandom. They were on the defensive from the beginning, never did much of any thing besides write fevered letters to INTERSTAT, and eventually just faded away altogether. How MM types who don't give a damn about STAR TREK one way or the other could threaten us any more than those folks did, and what their motive would be, I can't imagine. It seems to me the average MM type would not find STAR TREK congenial, and hence would have little interest in preserving STAR TREK from K/S "corruption." Paramount at least has standing to sue K/S fans, even if it couldn't win; the MM doesn't even have that much. To be honest I just don't think non-STAR TREK fans are likely ever to have the interest in K/S to motivate them to attack us.

I hesitate to bring up the subject matter of censorship, however, after a recent event in fandom I think it has become important for K/S fans to realize just what is going on in the hive mind at Paramount and other such places. As most of you have undoubtedly heard by now, the professional Star Trek book, KILLING TIME by Della Van Hise, was temporarily unavailable because of hassles with Paramount and PocketBooks, What you might not know is that this was caused primarily because of "K/S" — and the misunderstanding of it which runs rampant at Paramount. Basically, for anyone who ahs read some of the pro Trek books, it's easy to see that "allusions to K/S" are a lot more prominent in other books than they were in KILLING TIME. So why was KT singled out? Mainly because the author had an involvement in K/S writing and editing which went back several years rather than because of the content of the book itself... I can't help but think that this attitude has been caused by a very vocal minority which happens to have a lot of "big names" associated with it. David Gerrold comes immediately to mind — someone who basically used the public forum of his book to attack K/S and K/S fans, and caused both to come off sounding perversions. Well, guess what, folks? We're not pervies, and the sooner we make Paramount et al aware of that fact the sooner we're going to be able to relax a little. Basically, Paramount is interested in the almighty dollar and I've heard from a lot of non-K/S fans that they are angry because Paramount has "deliberately downplayed the friendship between Kirk and Spock." Translated, that seems to mean that no one has an an objection to Kirk and Spock doing a mind meld or openly discussing their friendship... In a nutshell, it seems to mean that Paramount is trying to satisfy the majority. And in trying to do so, they're satisfying no one completely... While I am not advocating taking K/S into a public forum (i.e. mass media or even panel discussions at conventions), I do feel it's important for K/S fans to make it known that the "moral majority" attitude currently employed by Paramount is leading to dissent on both sides of the K/S issue. In other words, Paramount has obviously let opinions from David Gerrold influence them to such a degree that we are starting to see a "crack down" on any kind of affection between Kirk and Spock in the professional field. On the surface, this might not seem too terrible, but keep in mind that the pro format is going to reach far more people that fanzines.

1988

This is too thin for its length and boringly reminiscent of the Classic episodes that involve "superior" races putting the Enterprise's crew on trial. I agree... that having the jellyfish "hold hands" at the end is too cutesy to bear. C'mon now: they have radial symmetry. If creatures like that want to touch each other, wouldn't the natural tendency be to approach each other "belly" first and make contact with all tentacles? The way they do it is chosen to pander to a bilaterally symmetrical audience. And did everyone notice the final touch, evidently thrown in to appease the censors or assure the Moral Majority that, why, them aliens are just like us, a boy and a girl, not some other nasty homosexual or hermaphroditic or even asexual setup: one of the aliens is tinted blue, the other pink. Please!

1996

Big studios getting mad about slash, well, a lot of them have known about it for years. I think it's something most of the producers of shows and movies would rather just ignore. As long as we spend the money on the tickets, or watch the shows to keep the ratings up, I dare say most of them don't care too much. This may change of course, with Promise Keepers and other new moral majority style movements coming out of America, something to be very worried about.

1999

Personally I find Saraid a much more offensive author than Klair. The idea that Jim and Blair could not possibly have a relationship unless they're forced into it by a primal imperative is homophobic and totally repugnant to me. The idea that Blair would repeatedly submit to rape by Jim without reporting it, moving out, or taking any other action is more offensive to me than I can possibly convey to you. Saraid said herself that in Panther Tales she was trying to see just how much she could degrade Blair without totally destroying the character. And I don't hear any outrage about that, but the cries of moral indignation about domestic discipline are deafening.

I've tried not to make personal judgements, but I find that a lot of slash writers are hypocrites, plain and simple. They write in an area that is considered deviant by many people and they expect nothing less than tolerance and understanding. But when they're asked to extend that tolerance to someone *they* disapprove of, the outrage is immediate and total.

I think Jerry Falwell and the Christian Coalition have a lot of competition in the bigotry contest. And I think it's sad that a lot of it comes from so-called 'enlightened' authors.

2007

As a) a copy editor and b) a participant in the world of "fandom," I must disagree slightly [to statements in From "fanatic" ]. To equate every fandom's members with the guy who showed up for jury duty in a Klingon uniform is more or less the same as equating every evangelical with Jerry Falwell, and I would say that no creator who cares about his or her audience should stay silent for fear of creating a few nutjobs. What's more, fandom is good for a creator's wallet. You encourage the creativity of fans and you extend the interest in your product.