June 19, 2000
Falwell urges Baptists to defeat Gore
___ORLANDO, Fla.--Baptist churches need to help defeat Al Gore in the November presidential elections by getting involved in voter registration drives, Jerry Falwell said in a radio interview during the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting June 12.
___Falwell, who in recent years led his once-independent Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., into the SBC, was interviewed by Richard Land, president of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. The interview, conducted in the SBC exhibit hall, is to be broadcast later on the ERLC's nationwide "For Faith & Family" program.
___America's religious conservatives are the "most energized" they have been since they helped elect Ronald Reagan in 1980, Falwell said.
___"The American people, I think, sense something right now--that we are about to lose America," he explained. "Ronald Reagan would not have been president unless Bible-believing Christians in 1979 and 1980 by the millions said, 'We've had enough,' and threw Jimmy Carter out and put Ronald Reagan in, to put it bluntly.
___"If we don't do the same thing Nov. 7 with Mr. Gore ... and get somebody in there to rebuild the moral values and fabric of this nation, we're going to be in the same mess or worse than we were in 1980," Falwell declared.
___Gore, also a Southern Baptist, is expected to be the Democratic candidate in this year's presidential election. He is predicted to be running against Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the likely Republican nominee.
___Falwell has come under intense criticism from civil libertarians, who accuse him of endorsing specific candidates and calling for the defeat of certain candidates. U.S law related to the Internal Revenue Service prohibits tax-exempt organizations such as churches and religious ministries from endorsing specific candidates. Violation of this law could result in loss of a church's or ministry's tax-exempt status.
___Falwell told Land in the radio interview he has launched a seven-month campaign he hopes will result in 10 million new registered voters and "scores of millions more" motivated to participate in the November elections.
___People of Faith 2000 aims to engage 200,000 evangelical churches and 28 million "faith-based families," he said. Pastoral registration packets will be mailed to the churches.
___It will require registering 3 million to 4 million more voters than took part in the 1996 elections "to almost guarantee pro-life, conservative, pro-family persons elected to the Congress, to the state legislatures and to the White House," Falwell said.
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