Reverend Jerry Falwell, the Late Great Hate
From childhood we're taught not to speak ill of the dead. I believe it's worse to speak ill of the dying.
I recall once when Jerry Falwell, founder of the so-called Moral Majority, appeared on The Phil Donahue Show. He spent his allotted sixty minutes (sans commercials) railing against homosexuality, a subject that remained dear to his heart until clogged arteries shut down that organ.
This was in the early eighties and the AIDS epidemic was in its genesis. Falwell's loathsome remarks are burned into my memory. The Southern Baptist minister, blithely ignoring the program's host and even forgetting which camera framed those fluttering jowls, was pontificating about how "unnatural" gays and lesbians were and how "the Creator doesn't make mistakes." Needless to say, scientists hadn't yet begun documenting the plethora of wildlife species which engage in same-sex activity, not to mention lifelong monogamous same gender bonding.
At one point during the interview - which was really more like a sermon since Falwell used the venue to castigate "sissy boys" and "manly women" - the evangelical leader, after assuming a jocular tone and floating a few lame quips, declared to the assemblage: "Animals don't engage in homosexual conduct! Chimpanzees don't, birds don't, fish don't, dogs don't!"
When Falwell said "dogs don't" the entire audience burst out laughing. They laughed at him, not with him.
It was a silly thing to say. Most dog lovers have witnessed male canines mounting other males (as well as the occasional human leg). Of course dogs that haven't been neutered - and about half of those who have - will mount a variety of objects, and everybody knows this isn't an indicator of the canine's sexual predilections. (Our black lab Little Brother used to display a certain, er, tendresse for a grinning plush monkey.)
It's important to note, however, that even though the people in the studio realized that a dog's sex drive is eclectic, Falwell had made a grave error. He underestimated the intelligence of his audience.
Falwell concluded his spiel by denouncing gays and lesbians as "abominations" and warning audience members that AIDs was "God's punishment for homosexual activity," a position still embraced by many ultraconservative pastors and pols. Phil Donahue, clearly fed up with this tripe, pounced upon his guest's cruel judgment and exposed the preacher's "facts" as base fearmongering. (Remember when media titans stood up to self-righteous bullies?)
Protected by the pulpit, a minister can usually count on... if not blind agreement, then respect and silent acquiescence from his own congregation, no matter what nonsense he pulls out of his ass. Falwell was accustomed to receiving this respect. He was not accustomed to having his declarations questioned. He was not accustomed to being the object of ridicule. When the crowd laughed - and I'm talking belly-laughs - Falwell's chubby face, already perspiring under hot studio lights, became elastic. In a matter of moments his expression changed from smug and overconfident to bewildered and hurt. I almost felt sorry for the man. Almost.
In the 21st century, when fundies talk about sexual orientation they alternate between their "it's abnormal" talking point and their more contemporary spin: "Yes, animals might engage is homosexuality - but they also eat their young! Human beings are not animals." Gay and lesbian relationships are condemned from the pulpit and romantic love between members of the same gender is dismissed as "unnatural lust." Some right-wing pastors compare us to child molesters, alcoholics, even terrorists. Others insist that we're damaged and must be "fixed." We are told that we "choose sin" and can pray away the gay. We are also told that perhaps change is impossible, and therefore we must remain chaste.
I wish they'd get their stories straight. Religious conservatives have been misrepresenting gays and lesbians for so long that they've finally managed to confuse themselves.
Why I Remember
It has been nearly three decades since that episode of The Phil Donahue Show. There's a reason why I'll never forget it. In the pre-Internet era, sexual orientation was seldom mentioned on television or in print media, and for the topic to be addressed at all was noteworthy. Much more relevant, however, is this: Less than a month before Falwell's homophobic tirade was broadcast, my partner's younger brother Steve confided to us that he had come down with "the gay cancer," as AIDs was sometimes called back then.
Steve and I watched that program together. I was unprepared for what Falwell would say and shocked that a Christian pastor would blame Art's brother and countless other young men for a disease. Steve got up and left the room, in tears, before the episode was over.
Our sweet Stevie - who wouldn't harm a gnat and possessed a warm and generous nature - was, according to America's religious zealots, responsible for his own suffering and imminent death while this... this grotesque clown preened on TV, clutching his Bible and luxuriating in the misery of others. It was obscene.
Jerry Falwell died in 2007. Steve died within a year of the Donahue Show episode I just described. Art's brother moved into our house during the last six months of his life, so we could care for him. He suffered horribly - but all we could really do was keep him clean and fed. (There were no treatment options in those days.)
A History of Hate
Below is the transcript from an exchange between Falwell and Pat Robertson in which these "holy" men connect gays and secularists to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The segment aired on the CBN's 700 Club, less than a week after the World Trade Center collapsed:
JERRY FALWELL: I agree totally with you that the Lord has protected us so wonderfully these 225 years. And since 1812, this is the first time that we've been attacked on our soil and by far the worst results. And I fear, as Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, said yesterday, that this is only the beginning. And with biological warfare available to these monsters -- the Husseins, the Bin Ladens, the Arafats -- what we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact -- if, in fact -- God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.
PAT ROBERTSON: Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population.
JERRY FALWELL: The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.
PAT ROBERTSON: Well yes.
JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. 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 have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."
PAT ROBERTSON: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we're responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.
JERRY FALWELL: Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged". In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time - calling upon God.
PAT ROBERTSON: Amen!
Younger generations of progressive Christians may be able to look past the venom spewed by these and other religious bigots - but I cannot. I will always remember a brave young man who suffered and died in our home while people who were not fit to wash his feet - and I use that phrase in its Biblical sense - condemned him to hell and interminable suffering.
In Falwell's later years, perhaps suspecting that his legacy would be forever tainted by homophobia - as, deservedly, it is - the preacher made tepid overtures to the LGBT community and spoke to a few gay rights groups. The meetings were insubstantial, despite being referred to as "productive" by his own ministry. Falwell lived in hate and died in hate.
(Pictured left to right: The odious Jerry Falwell, a vengeful God, Kaposi's Sarcoma, and Phil Donahue who is a truly compassionate man.)
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 Pharaoh's charioteers ... AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals. - Jerry Falwell
The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get yourself called 'reverend'. - Christopher Hitchens
![](<img src="http://www.progressivepuppy.com/0004a.jpg" />)
