Falwell opposed marital rape legislation and federal education welfare spending

Evidence

Another bill pending in the Senate (S. 1722) at that time would enable women to sue husbands for rape, he claimed. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was a particular target of conservative ire. Created in 1953, the department oversaw school integration, public-school curriculum revision, and welfare expenditures, money that conservatives felt could better be spent on national defense. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 222

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s note that militarized masculinity was transmitted through consumer culture — this shows the political-policy layer where such anxieties were concretized.