All those old white dude Evangelicals look alike.
So Jerry Falwell has died. I'm trying really hard not to be too pleased with this, but it's rough. This is a man who made a career of viciously attacking and demonizing anyone who refused to conform to his idea of morality.
In some of his finer moments he: criticized Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., calling the Civil Rights Movement the "Civil Wrongs Movement" and featuring prominent segregationists on his Old Time Gospel Hour (he later supported Apartheid and publicly mocked Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a "phony"); called AIDS "the wrath of a just God against homosexuals"; helped finance a false (faked?) documentary regarding alleged criminal activities perpetrated by Bill Clinton; and, of course, had this to say about September 11th: "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.'"
Even if he hadn't done any of that, he founded the Moral Majority, the very name of which makes my skin crawl. (Hey, it's a good thing pride isn't one of those deadly sins or anything.)
He spent his life not expounding or exemplifying Christian virtues, but wielding his supposed moral superiority as a weapon to inflict as much damage and indignity as he could on anyone who didn't agree with him. Whatever love the Christ of the New Testament might have offered, Jerry Falwell twisted into vitriol and spat in the face of his enemies. He thrived on contempt--his contempt for others and the contempt for himself he could engender in them. He was a twisted, hateful, arrogant, meanspirited soul. And in his death, I hope he finally finds some peace.
In some of his finer moments he: criticized Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., calling the Civil Rights Movement the "Civil Wrongs Movement" and featuring prominent segregationists on his Old Time Gospel Hour (he later supported Apartheid and publicly mocked Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a "phony"); called AIDS "the wrath of a just God against homosexuals"; helped finance a false (faked?) documentary regarding alleged criminal activities perpetrated by Bill Clinton; and, of course, had this to say about September 11th: "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.'"
Even if he hadn't done any of that, he founded the Moral Majority, the very name of which makes my skin crawl. (Hey, it's a good thing pride isn't one of those deadly sins or anything.)
He spent his life not expounding or exemplifying Christian virtues, but wielding his supposed moral superiority as a weapon to inflict as much damage and indignity as he could on anyone who didn't agree with him. Whatever love the Christ of the New Testament might have offered, Jerry Falwell twisted into vitriol and spat in the face of his enemies. He thrived on contempt--his contempt for others and the contempt for himself he could engender in them. He was a twisted, hateful, arrogant, meanspirited soul. And in his death, I hope he finally finds some peace.