Remembering the face of the not so ‘moral majority’
I was sitting at my desk answering a few emails on the afternoon of May 15. I glanced up at the television I keep on — sound down — as it flashed a picture of Jerry Falwell on the screen. Underneath his image the graphics read: 1933-2007.
“I think Jerry Falwell is dead,” I announced to no one in particular — but loud enough that anyone within earshot might hear. Associate Editor David Stout stuck his head through the door with a look of disbelief. “What?”
“Hang on a second,” I replied, quickly turning back to my computer and a Google news search.
Jerry Falwell dies at 73
Richmond, VA — 26 minutes ago
Jerry Falwell, the fundamentalist pastor and televangelist, has died at the age of 73. Falwell, a Lynchburg, Va. native, founded the city’s Christian ...
“Yeah. He’s definitely dead,” I said.
In the days that followed his death, lots of people had lots to say.
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force: “The death of a family member or friend is always a sad occasion and we express our condolences to all those who were close to the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Unfortunately, we will always remember him as a founder and leader of America’s anti-gay industry, someone who exacerbated the nation’s appalling response to the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, someone who demonized and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation.”
Wayne Besen, author, activist and executive director of Truth Wins Out: “It is with great regret that Rev. Jerry Falwell never moderated his position on homosexuality. While our hearts go out to his family, we can’t help but to reflect on his life and think about all of the families he’s torn apart and teenagers that committed suicide because he made them feel inferior. He never missed an opportunity to kick our better angels to the curb and capitalize on our lesser demons to advance his career.”
Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese: “Reverend Falwell’s death today causes my thoughts to turn toward the members of our community who have at great personal sacrifice contended with the Reverend’s work and teachings.”
As a writer and activist closely watching Falwell’s actions since the early ’90s, I’ve frequently been disillusioned and outraged by his words. So much so that a few years ago I wrote an editorial called “Enemy of the People” that documented some of his more outspoken statements.
I am glad that the negative influence he wielded has been extinguished. I regret that he seemingly never achieved a level of détante with those around him that didn’t share his beliefs.
It occurs to me that his often outrageous, anti-gay epithets — though hurtful in many ways — probably drew more attention to the LGBT rights movement than we could ever have achieved had he never existed. He galvanized the LGBT community to stand up and fight in a way it had never done before. In a twisted kind of way his pomposity and self-righteousness did us a favor. Call it a tribute if you like — but I can’t resist a final look back at some of the things he said during his 51 years of religious fervor.
On the Lawrence v. Texas case that overturned sodomy laws across the country
• “This is probably as bad a day as the court has had on social issues since Roe v. Wade.”
On turning America into a Theocracy
• “I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!”
• “There is no separation of church and state. Modern U.S. Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.”
• “We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours.”
About AIDS
• “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”
• “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah’s chariotters.”
Interpreting the Bible
• “The Bible is the inerrant … word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.”
On Judaism
• “The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior.”
On The American Civil Liberties Union
• “The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.”
On MCC
• Falwell referred to the the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Churches as “brute beasts” and “a vile and Satanic system” that will “one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven.”
On 9/11
• “I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America…I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen.”
On gays and lesbians
• “[Vice President Gore] recently praised the lesbian actress who plays ‘Ellen’ on ABC Television…I believe he may even put children, young people, and adults in danger by his public endorsement of deviant homosexual behavior…Our elected leaders are attempting to glorify and legitimize perversion.”
• “We cannot allow homosexuality to be presented to our nation as an alternative lifestyle. It will not only have a corrupting influence upon our next generation, it will also bring down the wrath of God upon America.”
• “Someone must not be afraid to say, ‘moral perversion is wrong.’ If we do not act now, homosexuals will ‘own’ America!…If you and I do not speak up now, this homosexual steamroller will literally crush all decent men, women, and children who get in its way …and our nation will pay a terrible price!”
On religious freedom
• “If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.”
Some of Falwell’s comments in recent years gave many Americans reason to believe the man had more than just a few screws loose. Who could forget Falwell referring to Ellen DeGeneres as “Ellen DeGenerate” or insisting that the “Teletubbie” TV character “Tinky Winky” was gay because he was purple, carried a purse and had an inverted triangle on his head?
At a pastors’ conference in Kingsport, Tenn., he announced that the Antichrist prophesied in the Bible is alive today and then added, “of course he’ll be Jewish.”
Despite years of verbose toxicity, there was some evidence that he was softening his hardcore beliefs in his later years.
In an interview on MSNBC’s “The Situation,” Falwell had this to say: “…civil rights for all Americans, black, white, red, yellow, the rich, poor, young, old, gay, straight, et cetera, is not a liberal or a conservative value. It’s an American value that I would think that we pretty much all agree on…housing and employment are not special rights. I think — I think the right to live somewhere and to live where you please or to work where you please, as long as you’re not bothering anybody else, is a basic right, not a — not a special right.”
In many ways, Falwell’s death marks the passing of an era — but we can’t rest easy. There are still many Falwell-like minded individuals waiting in the wings to spread their twisted, hate-filled lies. His passing should invigorate us to find with those people something he never achieved with us: peaceful coexistence.
David Moore Editor
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