ABSTRACT
During one of the televised debates of the 1984 campaign for the presidency of the United States, Walter Mondale raised the question of whether the Republican party platform proposed a religious test for the office of Supreme Court justice. Twice Mondale stated his objection to the possibility that the Reverend Jerry Falwell might exercise a closet veto on Supreme Court nominations. Falwell was a bright teenager, graduating as valedictorian of his class at Brookville High School. Falwell responded to the growing interest in the political muscle of evangelicals by organizing his 1979 Clean Dp America campaign, which began with a rally of 12,000 persons on the capitol steps in Washington. When Falwell used the word "traditional" in descriptions of the family, he meant to exclude the possibility of homosexual marriages in particular, for homosexuality is regarded as an abomination by the Moral Majority.
