Mr. Carlson is a Republican; he belongs to the local Kiwanis Club as well as the Rotary Club, attends church every Sunday (Gordon Jump had been a practicing Mormon since the 1960s), and teaches Sunday School. He also drives a Dodge (at a time when Chrysler was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy). In the episode "Clean Up Radio Everywhere," his socially conservative leanings cause him to befriend the Reverend Dr. Bob Halyers, the Jerry Falwell-esque leader of an organization dedicated to purging "obscene" songs from the airwaves. Shocked at reading some of the sexually suggestive lyrics that are being played on his station, Mr. Carlson orders his employees to follow Halyers' suggestions and not play those songs. But when Halyers delivers another list of songs to ban (including songs WKRP hasn't played yet), Mr. Carlson defies Halyers and refuses to co-operate with him anymore, leading to a boycott of WKRP's sponsors. In the closing scene of the episode, Mr. Carlson reaffirms that he likes Halyers personally, but that he won't submit to censorship, and he warns Halyers that anyone who would be cowardly enough to co-operate with him is bound to change his tune when the political winds shift. Carlson's religious views are also brought forward in the episode "God Talks to Johnny"; when Johnny believes that God is speaking to him and starts to go a little crazy, Carlson helps Johnny regain a sense of normalcy by telling him that it's all right if he thinks God is speaking to him, as long as God doesn't tell him to "get naked and hang out at the airport".