You wouldn't recognize him if you ran into him on the subway; you couldn't pick him out of a lineup; he never made the cover of the tabloids like Jimmy Swaggart or Ted Haggard; you probably never saw him on television. Nevertheless, the Reverend Donald Wildmon, who died recently at 85, was one of the Religious Right's most effective campaigners against whatever he perceived to be indecency on television and in the movies, and just about every hot button issue from gay rights to abortion, from banning books to fighting the so-called war against Christmas. While he wasn’t as well known as such religious right leaders as the Moral Majority’s Jerry Falwell, the Christian Coalition's Pat Robertson, and Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson, Wildmon was a major force on the Christian right, feared by corporate leaders.
Wildmon founded the National Federation for Decency in 1977, which eventually changed its name to the American Family Association in 1988. According to Church & State’s Rob Boston, Wildmon’s organizations “embrace[d] a familiar Christian Nationalist agenda: attacking LGBTQ+ people, blasting reproductive freedom, assailing public education, promoting the ‘Christian nation’ myth and working to lure conservative pastors into partisan politics.”
The AFA was the king of nudnik boycotts, launching campaigns against Disney, Target, Ford, McDonald’s, and dozens of other companies. “While critics debated their effectiveness, the actions garnered the group media attention and donations,” Boston noted.
The AFA, which has $31 million dollar budget, and is now run by Wildmon’s son Tim, also made its mark through its “nationwide chain of nearly 200 radio stations that blast far-right propaganda through its American Family News. AFA is a prominent member of the Shadow Network of organizations working to undermine democracy and church-state separation,” Boston pointed out.
The Tupelo, Mississippi-based AFA was a big supporter of Donald Trump, claiming he was God’s choice for the presidency, and the organization “peddled absurd conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines after Trump lost in 2020,” Boston wrote. During the COVID pandemic, not unexpectedly, the organization “urged churches to resist COVID-era restrictions on large gatherings. It ran stories sympathetic to the insurrectionists who were arrested after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.”
The AFA's agenda may be considered "old guard evangelism," but its technological capabilities, media holdings, and its willingness to fully embrace the Internet, makes it a forward looking enterprise. Included in the AFA's operational orbit are several AFA-affiliated state-based groups, the AFA Foundation, the Center for Law & Policy, American Family Radio, American Family News Network's OneNewsNow.com (formerly Agape Press), and AFA Action -- the legislative action arm of the American Family Association.
When histories of the Religious Right are written, the AFA should get its props for the role it has played and continues to play in culture-shaping. Although Wildmon was never as media savvy as Falwell, and didn’t have the high-powered political connections developed by Robertson, he was nevertheless a man to be reckoned with.
Wildmon wasn't sullied by scandal like some of his contemporaries: Unlike the Rev. Ted Haggard, he was never involved in a scandal involving sex and drugs; unlike the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, he wasn't reduced to tears on television as he begged forgiveness for his predilection for prostitutes; and unlike the Rev. Jim Bakker, Wildmon has never been accused of swindling his supporters.
For many, Wildmon will be mostly remembered for his unending stream of hateful rhetoric aimed at gays and lesbians; his relentless campaigns against popular television programs that he deemed family unfriendly, including "Three's Company," "Mash," and "Dallas"; his focus on pornography, or whatever he perceived as such; his organizing of the near-permanent boycotts against gay-friendly companies; and a barrel-full of hate-filled campaigns.