Falwell plans for "evangelical revolution"

Seeking to take advantage of the momentum from an election in which "moral values" proved politically motivating to a large percentage of voters, the Reverend Jerry Falwell announced Tuesday he has formed a new coalition to guide an "evangelical revolution." Falwell, a conservative Christian broadcaster based in Lynchburg, Va., said the Faith and Values Coalition will be a "21st-century resurrection of the Moral Majority," the organization he founded in 1979. Falwell said he would serve as the coalition's national chairman for four years. He added that the new group's mission will be to lobby for antiabortion conservatives to fill openings on the Supreme Court and lower courts, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and the election of another "George Bush-type" conservative in 2008. "We all, for the first time, began to realize the potential of religious conservatives, particularly evangelicals, when something over 30 million of them went to the polls," he said, noting that most supported the president and antiabortion candidates and voted to approve initiatives banning gay marriage in 11 states across the country. Also, a decision by the Massachusetts supreme court allowing same-sex marriages "helped energize our people," Falwell said. And when San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom began performing marriages for gay couples, it "really caught the attention of people of faith in this country, and what we have been saying could happen actually happened," he said. "The timing could not have been better. That, along with the abortion issues and the terrorism issue, helped us to get our people awakened." Falwell said that while overseeing the coalition he will leave day-to-day operations of Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church, both of which he founded, to his sons Jerry Jr., 42, and Jonathan, 38. Mathew Staver, founder of the conservative legal group Liberty Counsel in Orlando, Fla., will be the coalition's vice chairman; Jonathan Falwell will be its executive director. Theologian Tim LaHaye will be the board chairman.